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Fin’s already drunk, though he carries it better than I would. I’m not a drinker, never have been. Not when I know I carry my father’s tendency toward rage in my veins.
I stop myself, realizing that’s not true. That I don’t carry any bit of Rajeen in my veins. I don’t know quite how to deal with the fact that I can’t blame my anger on inheriting his blood, though I’m not foolish enough to think his cruel training regimen had nothing to do with it.
Still. I wonder how long it will take me to cease thinking of the late king as my sire. I wonder if there will always be a part of me that can’t quite accept it.
Fin downs a flagon of ale, his grin spread wide across his face as he sits, chair backward, legs sprawled, at the head of a band of males whose occupations I don’t even want to know.
He has his hood off, drunk and forgetting that we’re supposed to be hiding our identities, though even I have to admit it’s unlikely anyone will recognize him.
Fin doesn’t look like a prince, doesn’t carry himself like a male who’s been born into luxury, pampered since childhood.
He doesn’t bear the weight of kingdoms on his shoulders, though he does carry his grief. But in this moment, I can’t seem to find it. Perhaps that’s because he’s drowned it in liquor.
Fin’s telling a story, one I don’t recognize, about some travels he did years ago, before he married.
I don’t remember him taking the trip. Don’t know if he’s making the story up or not. Intoxication is strange like that. It seems that so long as the drunk doesn’t realize he’s lying, the fae curse doesn’t affect him. I decide I’d rather Fin be making up the story than hear the shenanigans he and Lydia pulled without me, on a trip I didn’t even know they’d taken, while I’d been consumed with pleasing Father.
“Pull up a chair,” says a male sitting at the table, gesturing toward me.
Fin swivels around to see who the man is speaking to, and as soon as his eyes focus in on me, his countenance falls. “You don’t want him to sit,” he drawls. “Not a people person, I’m afraid.”
The group lets out a chuckle, and a few of them tug at the collars of their shirts as the temperature in the inn rises.
I hold my breath, then back away, returning to our room.
It’s nearly morning by the time Fin bursts into our room, vomiting all over the floor before he collapses onto it.
My back aches from a sleepless night spent on this shabby excuse for a cot, but I make myself rise anyway, helping Fin sit up by propping him against the bed as I assist him in taking off his boots.
“Don’t touch me,” he says, though he can hardly get the words out.
I sigh, dropping his still-booted foot to the ground.
“Fine,” I say, lifting my hands and getting back into bed.
“You…you destroy everything you touch,” he says, though he’s clearly having to fight to keep his head up.
I grit my teeth. “We should have this discussion when you’re sober.”
Fin stands, though he stumbles and has to catch himself on the cot behind him.
I only have to wait a few moments before he falls backward on it and drifts off to sleep.
The alcohol in my brother’s blood must metabolize quickly, because he’s ready to disembark at the appointed time the next morning. I was prepared to pay for another night, figuring he’d have to sleep away the hangover today, especially given the ale he was drinking last night smelled faerie-made. But if my brother suffers from any lingering side effects of his drinking bout, he doesn’t show it.
He doesn’t speak a word to me for several hours.
“I don’t remember what I said to you last night,” Fin finally says, speaking up past the sound of the crickets.
We’ve set up camp at the edge of the woods tonight, the flame I conjured in the middle of the site providing relief from the chill of the Avelean night.
“Doesn’t matter. You were drunk. People say things they don’t mean when they’re drunk.”
Fin looks at me, crinkling his brow. “Have you ever been drunk? Because in my experience, people say exactly what they mean when they’re drunk.”
I toss a crumbling stick into the fire and watch it burn. It’s easier to watch than my brother.
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing you haven’t expressed before,” I say, and Fin goes quiet.
