AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I gave Jonas a strained look when my brother went on to repeat the word ‘ass’ at least three times. Small, but Rorik had a ferocious spirit and idolized the Rave, Aleksi most of all. My brother had the same dark eyes as our father, but lighter hair as if the paleness of our mother were trying to break through.
“Alek looks like he’s going to toss his insides.” Jonas jabbed his elbow into his brother’s ribs. “Ten gold penge he vomits from whatever trauma the higher ranks put him through in the peaks.”
Sander held Rorik’s legs and mutely assessed my cousin as he approached his commanding warriors. “I’ll take that bet.”
Mira rolled her eyes and muttered, “Always the same with you two.”
I bit my cheek. There could be no stopping the twin princes from scheming and making sly deals. Ploys and tricks were in their blood.
“He’s going to go.” Jonas gripped Sander’s forearm, studying Aleksi without blinking. “There he . . .dammit.”
Aleksi strode with unmatched confidence as he bid farewell to the commanders in each Rave unit. Jonas had reason to make the gamble. Regal as he appeared, Alek despised the attention his rank proffered in the courts. A prince, now a Rave officer, doubtless he could feel the prickle of every eye as he clasped forearms with his fellow warriors.
Jonas pressed a fist to his mouth when Aleksi turned, without a misstep, to greet his fathers—my uncles, Sol and Tor.
Sander held out a hand once Aleksi successfully embraced both his fathers without a stumble. Jonas cursed and slammed ten coins into his brother’s palm.
A horn blew from one of the watchtowers.
“Finally,” Jonas muttered.
“Your mother would be heartbroken if she knew how desperately you wanted her gone,” I whispered.
“How dare you,” he said, affronted. “My mother is the light of my heart. But I have plans for this festival, and there are some things a mother should not be privy to when it comes to her son.”
“He’s never been the same since Maj walked in on him with one of his sparring partners a few months ago,” Sander said, voice low.
Jonas blanched. “It was awful. Couldn’t look her in the eye for weeks.”
Rave gathered around the coaches. Sander removed Rorik from his shoulders and joined Jonas as they left us to bid farewell to their family; Mira went to hers. I took my brother’s hand, despite his protests and dragged him toward our clan.
Our people—the Night Folk fae—had the gods-gift of controlling the earth, while the Eastern realms with Jonas and Sander, used tricky magic of the mind and body. Mira’s people took the Southern and Western edges where fae could twist fate, shapeshift, or compel the mind with cantrips and illusions.
My gaze drifted to my mother and father.
The waves of my father’s ink black hair were tamed, and the sides were braided off his face, revealing the points of his ears. He whispered something to my mother, a contrast to him with her ice pale hair and crystalline eyes. She covered her mouth to hide a laugh at whatever he had said.
Both were brutal warriors, but tender and loving to each other to the point of nauseum. If ever I found a love, I’d always secretly prayed it would be like theirs.
“Alek!” Rorik called out even before shouting for our parents.
Aleksi grinned and shoved through the crowd, aimed straight for us.
A little shriek of excitement scraped from my throat when I practically choked my arms around his neck. He caught me around the waist and squeezed tightly.
“You’re not allowed to leave me with Jonas’s short attention span for six months ever again.”
Alek laughed and gestured to his new uniform, complete with a new seax blade. “Well, what do you think?”
I trapped his strong face in my hands. “You look snobbish, pretentious, and dull.”
Aleksi’s laugh rumbled deep in his chest before he smashed me against his side, suffocating my face into the pit of his arm. “What was it you said? Formidable? Incomprehensibly powerful? Cousin, I can’t hear you; what did you say?”
Winter brought my twentieth turn, and with it, Aleksi’s twenty-first. We still managed to bring out the childishness in each other.
“Bleeding hells, Alek!” Rorik’s lips parted. “You’ve got a bleeding captain’s blade!”
Aleksi kneeled in front of the boy to show him the new seax. I was half worried my younger brother was going to swoon and the other half was concerned he might burst into tears the way he stroked the steel of the blade.
