His father scuffed his boots in the dirt. “I’ve thought about you every day, too, wondering if you’d ever come home.” A pause. “If you hadn’t run into the twins, would you have returned?”
“You made it quite clear—”
“And you’ve never said something in anger that you regretted later? Never uttered the wrong thing when you were out of your mind with grief?”
Cracks appeared in Valek’s calm demeanor. Funny how being threatened by a butcher knife hadn’t affected him at all, yet his father’s words had the same effect as a blow to his head, followed by a punch to his solar plexus, leaving him dazed and unable to suck in a proper breath.
“Assassins learn to shut off their emotions,” Valek finally said.
“That’s bullshit. If that was the case, then you wouldn’t let the twins stay overnight, you wouldn’t be here by your brothers’ graves, you wouldn’t have a heart mate. Should I go on?”
“No. You’ve made your point.”
“Then what’s the answer to my question? Would you have returned?”
He hadn’t planned to, but with marrying Yelena, and the baby... “I don’t know.”
“Fair enough. Now come on inside.”
“I... Mother would get upset. I’d ruin her time with the twins.”
“Put that intuitive sense to work, boy. How would you feel in her place? It’s a lot to take in, and she’s not going to see them again—”
“Why not? You can visit them during the hot season when the Keep’s on break.”
His father jerked straight. “But they’ll be in Sitia. We can’t...”
“You can if I help you. In fact, Sitia has tanneries, too. If you want to live there, I can arrange that, as well.”
“You can?”
“I can.” Even if he no longer worked for the Commander.
He gazed at Valek for a few heartbeats. “I’ll think about it.”
“When you decide, just tell Patxi. He’ll get word to me.”
Valek’s father returned to the house. Movement seemed the best cure for his...confusion. Valek retrieved his pack from Onyx’s saddle and built a small fire near his brothers’ graves. It might be morbid, but to him it was comforting. The horses moved closer to the heat.
He boiled water and sorted through the travel rations, ensuring there would be enough to last. The crunch of footsteps sounded to his left. Valek jumped to his feet, knife in hand.
“Easy,” Zethan said. “Just bringing you supper.”
Valek slid the weapon back into its sheath as the young man stepped into the ring of firelight. Zethan handed him a fork and a plate with two slices of roast beef and a pile of mashed potatoes, all covered with a dark brown gravy. The smell alone was intoxicating.
“Did you draw the short straw?”
Zethan laughed. “No, I volunteered.”
“Thanks.” Valek sat next to the fire.
“I didn’t bring you a knife to cut the meat, ’cause I figured you already have about ten of your own.”
“At least.” Valek smiled.
Zethan took that as an invitation to sit down. “Mother’s coming around to the idea of us leaving. Although Zohav doesn’t believe you have the authority to let them come visit us.”
Zohav’s comment wasn’t a surprise. “Consider it one of the perks of my job.”
The teen pulled a half-burned twig from the fire. He sketched designs into the dirt with it. “What’s it like at the Magician’s Keep?”
Between bites of the smoky beef, Valek explained the five-year student curriculum. “You probably won’t have to start at the beginning, but I’d guess you’d be there two or three years.”
Valek answered a bunch of Zethan’s questions before Zebulon arrived with a piece of apple pie.
“Zee, Father wants to talk to you and Zo alone,” Zebulon said. “I expect you’ll get the same lecture that you got when you left for the coast. Plus, a bonus warning not to get captured by pirates,” he teased.
“You mean we weren’t supposed to get captured? Why didn’t he tell us that before?” Zethan brushed dirt from his pants before heading to the house.
Zebulon handed Valek the pie. “Mother said you can sleep in the house.”
“Thanks, but I have my bedroll and I’m used to sleeping on the ground.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Then he sat on the other side of the fire. He poked at the wood with a twig. Sparks shot into the sky.
Valek waited while Zebulon worked up the nerve to ask the questions he held inside. He studied his...brother—still a difficult concept to accept. Around nineteen years old, Zebulon’s personality appeared to be a mix of the twins, cautious like Zohav, but with a bit of a sense of humor like Zethan. Valek wondered if he had Vincent’s mischievous streak. Perhaps when the man relaxed, his true personality would show. Would any of them ever relax around Valek, the King Killer? He doubted it.
“What you mentioned to Father about moving south, does that apply to me, as well?”
“Of course.”
“What if we decide to stay here? Can we still visit the twins?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you care? You didn’t even know we existed until today. You didn’t care enough to ask your...agents how my...our parents were doing. How can we believe that you care now?”
Valek imagined Zohav had asked the same questions in the house. “I’ve many enemies. People who wouldn’t hesitate to use my family in order to get to me. But only a handful of trusted people know where my parents live, and I’ve assigned agents to protect them just in case the information is leaked. If I didn’t care, the agents wouldn’t be here. As for not knowing about you and the twins...” Valek swallowed. “I...ordered my agents not to tell me anything because...” He gazed at the gravestones.
His father’s comments about regret over harsh words repeated in his mind. Had his avoidance really been due to his parents telling him never to return or Valek’s own fear that if they became a family again, he’d be vulnerable to the intense heartache of losing them, like the grief he’d experienced when his brothers died? Or was it just pure stubbornness? Or the fear of being rejected if he’d returned? Perhaps all three.
“Because I couldn’t handle hearing about their lives continuing on without me and my brothers.” Because it would mean they’d moved past the tragedy and grief, while he hadn’t. When he’d told his father that killing the King had been freeing, he’d lied. Everything he’d done up to this point had been a result of that day. It was as if he’d been frozen in time.
Yelena had been the only one to reach him through the ice, drilling a small opening.
“What about now? Can you handle it?”
Could he? From the hole, cracks zipped along the frozen surface, creating a pattern. If he let his family through the barrier, would he shatter? Sweat raced down his back as a burning pain bloomed around his heart.
Unable to sit still, he stood and strode to the graves. He’d told his father that he belonged among the dead. That unmarked gravestone could easily be for him. He’d let Yelena in, but it had taken eight years for him to realize just how precious she was to him. The scar on his chest seared his skin. He knelt on Vincent’s grave and traced his name with a finger. Valek leaned his hot forehead on the cold, hard granite.
This was what he had been for so long. Cold. Hard. Why was this so difficult? He’d faced assassins, rogue magicians, the Commander, criminals of all sorts, and would gladly face them all a second time rather than watch his family be destroyed again. Yet he saw the murders so clearly in his mind. He relived that day over and over and over and over. Even with all his efforts to keep Ixia safe, they remained dead. The family of his childhood was gone and would never be the same.
Could he handle it? A new family that wasn’t just him, Yelena and the baby? A fire suffused him, and then it disappeared. Cold air fanned his face. Just as Janco had said, Valek had found a family despite being surrounded by ice. Yelena and the baby of course, but also a rather unconventional one that included Ari, Janco, Leif, Opal, Devlen and a number of horses.
Could he handle it?
Yes.
The admission zipped through him, and the invisible yet ever-present weight lifted from his shoulders. Breathing easier, he straightened. Zebulon remained by the fire, watching him with a worried frown, hoping Valek didn’t go crazy and kill them all. Odd that Zebulon’s thoughts should be so clear to Valek.
As he returned to the fire, the air smelled different. He picked up a number of scents—the ashy smoke from the burning coal, the earthy aroma of leather and the sweet odor of grass from the horses. Tendrils of wind caressed his face. The strangeness continued. He recognized distant sounds and his night vision sharpened, extending his range of sight. It was as if he’d been bundled head to toe in thick furs and had flung them off.
“You okay?” Zebulon asked.
“Yes.” He focused on the flames, blocking the extra sensations. Then he addressed his brother. “The answer to your first question is also yes. I can handle it.”
“Good.” Zebulon laid another branch onto the fire. Then he met Valek’s gaze. “I’m not sure I can. I’m pissed at Father for not telling us, but if everyone knew, we’d be targets.”
“Which is why you’re not going to tell anyone. This little visit—” Valek’s hand traced a circle in the air “—is me checking that you don’t have magical powers before I drag the twins to the Castle, where they will be executed. Understand?”
“Yes. And you need to understand that just because we have the same parents doesn’t make us brothers.”