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“Knock them out or something!”
Oh, sure. Easy.
“Before or after”—Lunara thumped a stack down and leapt into the ether again, reappearing with more—“we catch all this shite?”
A blue streak flashed, Kala whipping around the nearest corner and rasping, “Oh no.” The tiny dragon zigged and zagged between them, trying to help, but she was so small and—
“What in the Five-fucking-Realms is—” Sokar caught Kala before she was crushed by a pitching table, immediately sucked into the chaos when the floor buckled under the weight of Brand’s power and a nearby shelf teetered. “You two! How the fuck did you get in here?!”
“Please,” Lunara shouted above the din, shoving the slipping spines back while she helped him hold it up, “we need your help!”
“Who’s fucking ‘we’? Damn it!” A ladder slammed into his shoulder and smoke curled from his nostrils, his brown skin shimmering like the sand in Straelon on a hot day.
“No, no.” Kala slithered her way around his neck, to hug his face. “Shhh. Deep breaths.”
“Alright.” Fern dumped her armful and brandished her mace. “Get…your shit…together!” she grunted through her teeth, clocking Brand and the twins in the side of the head with its blunt handle between words.
They went down like felled trees, wreaking as much havoc in their defeat as they had while raging, and Pet lost his stars-damned mind.
“Hey!” Fern fisted one of his ears and brought them nose-to-nose, growling back in his face as she shook him. “Look around… No… You idiot, it’s a fucking library!”
Fern shoved him away, Pet tucking tail, and it was all Lunara could do not to melt into a puddle of manic laughter at the sudden and deafening silence. The stillness.
Lunara helped Sokar set the closest shelf to rights as power flared and winked away, the others letting go of their various forms—massively interesting, considering only Brand and Mag should have been able to do that outside their realms.
After sending a robe over to Magnus, Lunara leaned in and murmured, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“You need to leave,” he hissed. “Now.”
The short temper was understandable but it still caught her off guard. “We can’t. Please, this was the only way.”
“No.” He was tense, his shoulders ratcheted up, breaths shallow as he pretended to straighten the mess.
“I don’t think she was really asking, fuckwit.” Fern clicked her tongue. “Do I need to tie you up again? Ugh, you liked it, didn’t you.”
Brand and Magnus sidled up behind Lunara. An apology flared in the bond, Brand’s hand landing the small of her back, but he was practically vibrating with the effort of bottling up his rage and battle frenzy.
Sokar’s head snapped up. “That’s not—” His eyes went wide on seeing the brothers there and he spun away, voice almost unrecognizable when he grumbled, “You know the rules. Kala, stay with them,” and bolted for the nearest corridor.
He was just shy of disappearing around the corner when shock rippled into her and Brand breathed, “Uncle Sokar?”
Shitting stars and fucking arses. Uncle.
Everything clicked together at once.
That was why he looked so bleeding familiar—he felt exactly fucking like them, in the same way that all the Imperial Sons were obviously brothers, even with the stark differences between their features.
Sokar stopped dead in his tracks, more statue than creature.
“Weeping fuck.” Magnus closed the distance in a daze, rounding Sokar. “Sisters save me, it is you. You’re…you’re supposed to be…”
“Yes.” Sokar’s head hung, any remaining fight draining out of him. “I know.”
“He’s supposed to be what?” Fern’s whisper may as well have been a shout.
Sokar straightened and turned, jaw ticking as he looked between Brand and Magnus. “Dead. Excuse me.”
His words cracked through the bated silence like one of her whips, landing right in the gut as he pushed by Magnus and stomped away.
