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He crossed to lay a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Mag.” He squeezed. “Did you know them?”
“Nay, lad, but that doesn’t much matter to me. The way this sort of thing had to be done…” He growled and rose, retribution settling over him like a shroud. “Stay, if you like, but I want out of this room. This whole fucking place.”
With that, he stomped out of the room.
“I’ll talk to him,” Fern said. “Pet and I…understand each other. We’ll make sure he doesn’t actually leave.”
Brand nodded, too stunned to move. How bloody much had he missed for Fern to know his brother’s wolf so well?
He braced himself, expecting an episode to hit. For a wave of jealousy to wash over him. Instead, he was left more confused than ever when neither happened and all he found inside was an unexpected lucidity.
Yes, he wanted to rage at the one who’d done this. Was sick to his stomach over Nyri and Bal. Felt so bloody tired he could lay down right there and sleep for days. And his heart was breaking for Magnus. Shite, the whole damned world.
Normal feelings under the circumstances, but he didn’t have to force them. As if he was more…himself?
“Do you think there’s any point in finding out what’s behind here?”
Lunara’s question snapped him out of his reverie. She stood beside the closed door, running slow fingers down its surface. Familiar, like he’d seen her do that before.
“I don’t know.” Honest, at least, if a bit unhelpful.
“It wasn’t in my—” She shook her head, as if to clear it. “I’m too frightened to open it, and yet too frightened not to.”
“Hmm.”
Blessed Solyrian, she was a stunning creature. Brand couldn’t look away. Again. Just as when he’d entered the cave behind her to find eyes like the sea staring back at him, he was transfixed. How had he not really noticed her until now?
She was understandably subdued since her collapse. A stranger knowing her precise actions in advance—all of their actions? He stifled a shudder. Horrid.
“Truthfully, it doesn’t feel like there’s much point in anything these days. This world I’ve woken up to…” The admission fell right out of him. He crossed one arm and ran a knuckle over his lips, up and down, back and forth. “More and more, I want to be someone else. To run away and live a simple life, unburdened. Silly, I know, but there’s no harm in wishing.”
Lunara turned wide eyes on him. For some reason, the look penetrated right to the core of him.
“Tell me,” she murmured, “what would you do with your simple life?”
“Nothing at all exciting, I assure you,” he answered, the reply on his tongue before he really had time to think, the quirk at the corner of his lips unbidden.
Her breath caught, a deep furrow carving its way between her brows. “What about the papers piled up on your very official desk? The price of grain and cloth?”
Brand blinked. He…knew those words.
“Spare me,” he whispered, “from talk of money.”
He knew those fucking words.
At her gasp, his heart flipped over. The next beat stole his breath and turned his stomach. In the recesses of his mind, a roar sounded—desperate, agonized, each reverberation forcing a swell of emotion to build.
Brand doubled over, Lunara catching his elbow and—
Solyrian at sunset.
A basket of ripe strawberries.
The pages of a book.
It took him too long to realize it was his own screams filling the room. That raw power was spilling from him and into the stone that surrounded them. By the time he did, it was too late.
The earth rocked beneath his feet, a shudder rippling outwards, and oblivion took him.
