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Brand was still wearing yesterday’s trousers and hadn’t washed his hair. Hadn’t even looked at himself since hacking it all away. Since shaving his beard.

Shite.

He combed through his waves, trying to smooth whatever mess might be⁠—

No. Deep breath, hold it, release, hold it.

Brand wasn’t going to do that to himself anymore. He wasn’t going to do that to Amun. His brother didn’t care what he was wearing. Wasn’t judging Brand like he always let himself believe. It was lies, all of it. His fear and confusion used against him.

Amun loved him. He did.

Luna’s hand tightened around his own, and he relished the comfort and support. Especially after deciding to leave Stirling in their chamber.

When a dense clump of needles crunched beneath his next step, both Amun and Lyriat stilled.

“I told you to leave me be, Fern,” Lyriat growled over his shoulder. “I do not wish to hear any more of your, or anyone else’s, fucking feelings today.”

“I’ve found that Fern’s feelings are worth hearing. They have yet to lead me astray,” Brand said softly.

Lyriat whipped around, voice almost desperate when he said, “My friend greeted me before, but this sounds more like the brother of my heart. Did Lunara’s idea work? Is it you that’s finally here?”

Brand released Luna and closed the distance, kneeling in front of Lyriat. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

That familiar, mossy stare darted back and forth, searching his own. A wash of tears came next, pleading in Lyriat’s crumpled brow as he gripped Brand’s shoulder with a trembling hand and shook his head.

He’d never seen Lyriat lost before.

“What’s happening here?” Brand asked, glancing at Amun.

“All my hope,” Lyriat rasped, “has just been wrenched away from me.”

Amun sighed, pinching his brow. “You gave him no choice.”

“But I can’t—” Lyriat snarled through gritted teeth. “Bal and Nyri…”

A lump in his throat tried to choke him, but Brand swallowed it back. Lyriat literally took Brand into his arms as a babe, still a child himself, and made him who he was. Shaped the very fabric of his life. Pulled him up and lifted him higher so many times that he’d lost count. It was time to return a drop of that favor.

He gathered Lyriat into his arms and held on for dear life as the mighty Demon King finally gave in and broke, sobbing into Brand’s neck. Luna and Amun melted away while he rocked his friend, her soothing calm shoring him up from afar, and he remembered some of the things she’d done for him.

Brand smoothed the copper fall of Lyriat’s hair over and over, uttering low nonsense so he’d know he wasn’t alone. That Brand had him this time.

At long last, Lyriat sucked in a hitching breath and went boneless. “It’s all my bloody fault. I got cocky and fucked it up.”

“Shite, if you’re actually admitting that, then I know it’s bad,” Brand murmured, a note of teasing there as he glanced up at his oldest brother. “What exactly is it though?”

Amun shook his head and pulled a crinkled slip of parchment from between the folds of his riding linens—the missive Brand sent to everyone after Baldrir’s wretched return months ago. “As I said I would, I’ve been looking into this.”

Brand’s heart turned over—half his own reaction, half Luna’s. “And?”

“And it’s led me on a shocking path of discovery, which I will happily share once I’m done with my investigations, but most pertinent to you is this.”

He presented an oak-handled whittling knife, the wood worn into the shape of its master’s hand. The already short blade was in need of replacement, the one there sharpened so many times that the damned thing was nearer a toothpick than anything else.

Brand would know it anywhere.

“One of Gaul’s tools?” He sank back onto his arse, uncaring of the dirt. “Why do you have it? How?”

“Amal and I went into the underground system you found in Thodelebor after the fact, and scoured it. Vann helped. That one led us to the entrance of another.” Amun shook his head. “To no one’s surprise, the Chieftains of the Westrealm were not pleased to learn that their precious land is riddled with abandoned torture chambers on top of everything else going on. Nor were the Eternal Ones of Kohamaia—which is where we found it.”