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My heart lodges itself somewhere in my throat. I shut my eyes and wait for my vocal cords to loosen before responding. “I thought you wouldn’t want to risk another encounter with the Shrouded.”
After a long pause, during which I don’t dare to look at him, his reply comes as an ugly snort. I take it to mean I should continue.
Mother refuses to let the matter drop so easily. “Dravek, it was a disaster. A complete humiliation. Look at the state of me.” Her voice has a high, pinched sound to it. She might even be crying actual tears. I’m impressed.
“After all that planning, the hairdressing, and the expensive jewels ... And what was the point?” She sniffs loudly, a bitter laugh bubbling from her throat. “And my dress ...”
Father snatches a bone from my grasp and hurls it into the fireplace. It explodes into a myriad of sparks. “I have more important things to worry about than your dress, woman.”
My eyes dash to my mother’s face, which has taken on a darker tinge. She sits up, eyes flashing. Half of her light hair is still secured to her head, and the rest cascades in tight waves over her shoulders. “Well, with that failure of a ceremony, I’m sure our family is the joke of Utsanek.”
This time she strikes a nerve.
“This has nothing to do with us.”
“Of course not, my dear,” she says sweetly, mollified as her words hit their target. She settles back into the couch and resumes untangling her hair. “But I had hoped you would do everything in your power to redeem yourself after the last Reckoning.”
She provokes him on purpose. The hairs on the back of my neck raise in warning. Father won’t ever raise a hand against her, but I know that doesn’t mean I will be safe. I dump my blinding load of sola bones into the kindling basket near the hearth and hope I will be able to light the fastest fire of my life. Because even though this room is the last place I want to be right now, I know there isn’t another person in this house that will lift a finger to help. If the command of darkness will last any length of time, we will need all the firelight we can get.
In response to her barbed words, my father grabs another sola brossa from the basket to hurl past my head. This one merely lodges itself in the pile of ash, sending up a cloud of dust. It takes all my resolve not to shrink under his overhanging form. My hands grapple with flint and kindling, desperate for it to catch so I can get out of this situation. As my breathing quickens and my gut twists itself into a painful spiral, a single spark jumps away from the steel to ignite the pile of feather sticks. I thank whatever power that gave me success and blow it into flame. In no time, the ignati licks at crackling logs. I move to make my escape.
“Where do you think you are going?”
I cringe. Something venomous bubbles under the surface in my father’s tone. I’m used to his words pouring out in angry torrents, not this barely controlled undercurrent. Frozen with my back to him, I hold the basket of kindling and sola bones to my chest. My eyes squeeze shut; my shoulders tense in anticipation of his forceful hands. The moment drips by like an eternity.
“Oh, let him go, Dravek,” my mother drawls, breaking the silence with her apathetic tone. She waves dismissively.
For once, she came to my rescue.
I look back at Father, but he has already left the room. Not willing to risk one more altercation, I head for the stairs, my supper forgotten.
“Belwyn, where is Rhun?” my mother calls after me.
Pausing at the banister, I inhale through gritted teeth. I almost escaped. “Wasn’t he with you?” My voice is terse, and I don’t like it. Too much like my father.
“I lost track of him in that ... well, whatever it was. Why don’t you take a look for him?” She sighs, and when I look over my shoulder, I see her settling back into the sofa with eyes closed, her long hair flowing across the cushions.
“I’m sure he’ll show up eventually,” I mutter, tired of always being the one to hold this family together.
Before she can guilt me into doing what she asked, I bound up the steps.
The light leaves with me.
It is pitch black when the creak of the door startles me awake.
“Welcome home,” I mumble into my pillow as Rhun stumbles into our shared bedroom. He swears and closes the door much too loudly for the middle of the night.
I raise myself onto one elbow and peer uselessly into the darkness.
“I’m surprised you were able to find your way home.”
He snickers like a maniac. I hear the muffled sound of his cloak dropping to the floor. At the same moment, our small room fills with blinding light. I throw up a hand to shield my eyes.
“We snagged a couple of these after that awful ceremony.” He barely controls the fit of laughter that wants to run away with him. When my eyes adjust, I make out two sola brossa in his palm, no bigger than a carving knife.
“Shades, Rhun!” I say as loud as I dare, now fully awake. I lunge at his hands to douse their light. “What are you doing with these?” The bones clatter to the floor, and I throw my pillow over them. Pain bites at my kneecaps. I pin the bones to the planks with the pillow as if to keep them from skittering away.
“What’s the matter, Belwyn?” he asks after catching his breath. His boots thud dully as they hit the far wall. “They’re just bones. It’s not like the kaligorven even know we have them.”
