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With a clenched jaw, Belin stared at his brother. I froze, convincing myself that if I just stayed still, the conversation wouldn’t continue.
“I thought…” Belin started, his voice trailing off, threatening to break.
Miles turned to me, assessing my expression the way he had in the pub, waiting on my word. All traces of brotherhood and love had left the air. My breath caught, my lungs beginning to burn under the pressure of the moment. I didn’t know what to do or what to say.
Belin swallowed hard, a ruggedness to his expression that I couldn’t place. “There’s a lot I need to tell you. Both of you. But we need to get you to a healer.”
Chapter 34
Belin had hooked the horn of the ram’s head mask through a strap on his saddlebag, the metal bobbing against my ankle with every step, a constant reminder that I’d been with Belin’s younger brother since I was taken from the castle in Eserene.
No one said a word for hours as we trekked through the forest on our way back to Taitha. I had so many questions, but my mind couldn’t settle on one long enough for me to ask it before it skipped to the next one. Squeezing my eyes shut, I exhaled hard, trying to make sense of how we all found ourselves here.
“Are you all right?” Miles’ — no,Tobyas’voice was low enough that Belin couldn’t hear from where he walked behind us. I sat in front of the Lieutenant in the saddle, and until he’d spoken, the only time I even knew he sat behind me was when I caught a note of his oakmoss scent every so often. He was riding tall despite the arrow wound that I imagined pulsed on his shoulder. A low, unsettled fire smoldered within me, one that I made no attempt to extinguish.
“Absolutely not,” I answered, the words dry. Miles’ presence behind me had been a tiny reassurance, a small piece of familiarity in the turbulence. How ridiculous that the man I’d met just weeks ago, the man who’d turned me over to my enemy, the man I didn’t know the identity of until just hours ago… He was somehow my lifeboat in a storm I’d done nothing to create. “I guess I should call you Tobyas now,” I said, cutting my thoughts off before I could spiral any more than I already had.
He shifted uncomfortably behind me. “I still don’t know who Tobyas is.” Something like regret laced his tone. “Miles is good. Miles is…me.”
I nodded, a part of me thankful that this tiny thing hadn’t changed. “Miles it is.”
“We’re going to have to make camp, you know,” he whispered quietly. The sun had grown dangerously low, but no one dared to be the one to suggest bedding down for the night. Not when the silence between all of us was so weighted.
I closed my eyes to the truth I was dreading, the awkward stillness that I knew would surround this campsite. Belin and Miles could talk all night, but at some point, I knew Belin would approach me. “I know.” I craned my neck forward to look for an upcoming clearing in the trees but saw only dense, endless forest. Miles suddenly flinched behind me. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ve survived worse,” he laughed. “Ready?”
“Never.”
He cleared his throat. “We’ll need to bed down for the night,” Miles declared into the quiet forest. The horse came to a stop in the middle of a poorly designated trail, the brush dense and dark around us.
Belin began piling firewood in his arms without a word, kicking aside some brush to make space for a firepit. I threw myself into helping Miles, anything to keep from facing Belin. But still, agitation built in my chest as I helped the Lieutenant lean back against a tree trunk, careful to avoid disturbing the arrow wound. A fine sheen of sweat shimmered against his brow in the final remnants of daylight. Even in his weakened state, he didn’t need my help, but I appreciated the distraction, even if it was at Miles’ expense. Did that make me a shitty person?
His brother. It was strange, to say the least. Absolutely fucking bizarre, to say the most.
The rhythmic clanking of the logs lulled me into a fragile calm as Belin arranged the firewood. I knew I could blow the calm to pieces at any second, knew that the flames inside me weren’t far from igniting. As Belin reached into a pocket in his cloak and pulled out a flint, I laughed involuntarily.
He turned to me, a single brow raised, face otherwise blank. I held a hand out, quickly burrowing within myself to find that heat, and expelled a tiny spark from my hands that landed perfectly at the base of the logs.
Belin flinched, his eyes flying wide as the fire ignited. Miles let out a chuckle and I gave a slight nod before lowering myself to the ground, satisfied enough with myself that I smiled a bit, a part of me thankful that it’d actually worked and I hadn’t burned the entire forest down.
But even if I’d leveled this forest into a field of ash and soot, I’d still have been the only one with the power to do so. No man could make the same claim. I was the one with the power, and I needed to make sure I remembered that.
? ? ?
Stars peeked through the canopy of trees, and I stared. Just stared. The deep blue night was cloudless, the moon missing only a sliver of her face, the air mild. I let it fill my lungs, willed it to clear my mind of the smoke that had suddenly clouded it. Animals howled and screeched around us, the noises like nothing I’d heard before, not even in the Onyx Pass. But fear never entered my mind — it didn’t have any room.
Miles slept just a few feet from me, the fragment of the arrow still jutting from his back as I watched the even rise and fall of his breathing. I begged my own body for sleep but knew it would be an unanswered prayer. There would be no respite from these thoughts. The minutes ticked by, my consciousness never waning. It had to be well past midnight now, but still I closed my eyes and let my mind run rampant.
“Petra,” I heard from across the fire.
I knew better than to look. I knew what I’d see if I turned. But like a fucking idiot, I let my head drop to the side, let Belin’s features materialize through the low burning flames. The light danced in his eyes like the crystal cave in Eserene, a bright spot among the darkness that cloaked the world. I basked in his stare, reveled in the fact that his eyes were on me. Because even now, even after everything, he was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
And it made meangrythat I still saw him in that light, shot ire so deep into my core that it seeped out of my skin, trickled down my back. A thousand words passed between us in the silence, and while I knew my eyes betrayed the hurt that he caused me, his eyes betrayed the guilt that he caused himself.
This was it. It was time. Miles had gotten his answers. It was time I got mine.
I stood suddenly and brushed the dirt and leaves from my body. Without looking back I walked into the forest, knowing I was a far more dangerous monster than anything that could be lurking among the trees. I breathed a quiet sigh of acceptance when I heard the sound of footsteps behind me as I headed deeper and deeper into the trees, away from the fire and into the moonlight.
