Page 2 of Tides of Shadows

I didn’t expect such ceremony.

“I will come shortly,” I said, walking out the kitchen.

I passed servants carrying out the chests for our travel. There were not many. There has not been much of anything lately.

I turned toward the library. I knew he would be there.

He always was.

I entered quietly. When he saw me, he tried to rise from the chair. He was almost as tall as our father. He swayed and nearly fell. I reached him in two strides.

“Easy,” I whispered, guiding him back down.

Pain twisted his face. Beneath my hands, I felt how thin his body had become. He had once been as strong as a bull; no one could have taken him down. Everyone envied our father for having such a promising heir. Now… Now everyone looked at him with pity. Even me. My brother.

They said there was no cure. They said nothing could be done. My father called in medics from distant cities. But no one could save him. I helped him sit up, but when he saw the worry on my face, he snorted.

“Do not look at me like that. I don’t want you to remember me like that.”

“Alaric,” I said, fixing him with a cautionary look, for the words he shouldn’t have said.

I sat beside him and squeezed his hand. For a moment, neither of us spoke.

“I have something for you,” he said, reaching for a small pouch. “It is not much, but I do not want you to feel like some poor island girl at the palace.”

I opened it and froze, the purse was full of palladium coins.

“Where did you get this?!”

“I have no use for it,” he shrugged. “I need no horse, no sword, no armor. You can buy yourself a nice dress in the White City. Perhaps you will finally look like a proper Lady.”

I laughed.

“I don’t need a dress.”

“And how do you plan to find a husband?”

“Simple. I don’t.”

His expression sobered. “Do not say that. What happened doesn’t mean you will never find anyone else.”

I shook my head.

“Maybe someone will be insane enough to bind themselves to you for all eternity,” Alaric said. “At least it would relieve me a little of your constant presence.”

I punched him in the arm.

“Do you remember,” I asked, “when I was five and said I would marry you?”

He laughed aloud. I had missed that sound more than ever.

“I remember. Mother had to explain to you that it didn’t work that way. You were very angry and offended. Then you took some random dog to the castle and told everyone it was your child.”

“I was an excellent dog-mother.”

“Until father discovered you both had fleas.”

We burst out laughing. For a moment I felt like in the old days. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave him. He was so alone here, prisoner in his own body.