Damn it.
“My seventh-place little brother!” Arrin calls, zeroing in. No sign of his lady friend anywhere. He stumbles over to me wearing a jackal’s grin. “Come with us tonight. I know a lonely girl who’s in love with me. Not very pretty, but she might settle for you. We can celebrate you turning sixteen!”
“I’m seventeen,” I say, annoyed that he looks blurry and out of focus. “And it’s not my birthday.”
He shrugs, wrapping a rough arm around my shoulders. I stagger backwards. “Not so noble now, are you?” he crows. “Walking crooked. What would Mother think?”
“Throw yourself off a pier, Arrin.”
It’s probably the stupidest insult I’ve ever hurled, but Garrick whistles, the drunk ass.
Arrin shoves me away. “That was a low point in my life.”
At least he remembers. I was fourteen the first time he took me out with him, hauling me around some salty port town in Brisal, the sort of forgotten place, still burnt-out from the war, where he could be reckless without consequence. He tried very hard to get me drunk. It didn’t work—I hated the taste. So he got himself drunk instead and then started pining for some red-headed girl in a brandy-fueled monologue of woe, ready to jump off the pier, and I stopped him. Or rather, I grabbed him from the edge in a panic and he was so drunk he fell on top of me. Then his fist gave me a bloody lip, and he said he was going to die in Father’s wars anyway and I was a selfish little bastard for not letting him take the easy way out.
Brotherly love.
“Your loss with the girl then,” Arrin announces, once he realizes we won’t be convinced. He studies Cyar and me with a devilish smirk. “You two are always together, though. Maybe you need advice from Kalt?”
“Shut the hell up, Arrin!”
I’d hit him, but Cyar already has me through the gates. Not worth the effort. Or the bruises. The ground shifts beneath my feet as we walk, like a listing boat, every step uneven somehow. The house suddenly seems a long way off. I’d rather just sleep in the garden. Not a bad idea. It’s warm enough tonight, the air feels nice. Cool and fresh. I start to resist Cyar’s pull, but voices drift from the narrow alley to the left of our home.
The drunken heroes?
No, they went the other way. Their laughter echoes somewhere beneath the distant street lamps. I listen closer, trying to think through the whirl in my head.
Father’s voice. And Admiral Malek’s.
Out here?
I walk in their direction, Cyar trailing behind, and a circle of dark figures appears around the corner. We stop abruptly. The world lurches again, and I grab the wall.
“Havis didn’t tell me anything else,” a desperate man implores, on his knees before Malek. “He only said Sinora Lehzar doesn’t know the ones in Etania are false. She believes her people are truly protesting us, and isn’t that what you want? She—”
Malek towers over him. “Then why didn’t you bring us his message right away?”
“I was going to, I swear! I wouldn’t lie.”
Sinora Lehzar.
I know it, distantly, in my fog. The woman Father hates. A Southern traitor from long before Savient. Arrin threw her name as a challenge once, when he was sixteen, and Father broke his nose for it. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen Arrin almost cry.
The desperate man turns to Father now, rushing with, “It’s complicated. You know this. She’s a damn queen, and we’re dealing with Seath—”
Father steps close and aims a pistol at the man’s head. “You don’t ever speak that name aloud.”
He cowers. “Of course not.”
“Have you?”
“No, no! I swear to God and all things sacred, I haven’t!”
The man’s panting breath fills the chilly silence. The gun looms at his forehead.
“I believe you,” Father says after a moment.
The man’s shoulders drop in relief.
“But I don’t trust you any longer.”
A sharp report echoes, a shower of red scattering on cement along with bits of brain, and Cyar’s fingers bite into my arm. I grab the wall again.
Father stares at the body a moment, then glances up, spotting us frozen in the shadows. Cyar’s boots scuff backwards. The instinct to flee. I feel it too, but Father’s walking for us, pistol in hand, his gaze forbidding me to run. I can’t make my feet work.
“Hajari, leave us,” he says when he reaches me.
It’s the sharp edge that heels even Arrin.
Cyar hesitates for one noble moment, like the idea to wait for me crosses his mind, even if only for a breath, then his boots are hurrying down the path behind. Don’t blame him.
I look at the body on the ground. Blood curls around the man’s head, dark as oil in the night. “What did he—”
“Traitors must be dealt with,” Father says. “He said one thing and did another.”
My limbs go weak.
“Tell me you’re going to make Top Flight, boy.”
Oh God, he’s doing this now? With a gun in hand, with a body behind him? And I’m drunk as hell. Maybe that’s a good thing. I’m not even sure what’s happening.
“Yes, sir.”
“I hear you’re barely in seventh place.”
Damn Arrin. At least Torhan knew how to keep a secret.
“That’s not a bad position to be in,” I say. “Seventh out of thirty is really quite…” My voice dies.
His eyes narrow. “I realized years ago that you do everything halfhearted. I’ve watched it and let you carry on, because I figured you were just a child and eventually you’d grow out of it. But here you are, five weeks from graduating and no more committed to anything except your own damn self.”
“No, sir, that’s not—”
“I won’t pull strings for you. Fixing odds helps no one, not in war. But things have become more serious”—he shrugs at the body behind—“and I know there’s a wealth of talent buried in that head of yours. You can pretend to be different all you want, but you’re fighting for something. I know you are because you’re my son, and I won’t leave you at home.” He stabs the pistol at me. Instinctively, I back up. “This is my only warning to you. If you’re not headed for the squadrons, then I’ll find another way for you to help me.”
“Another way?” I sound a bit hoarse.
“Yes. You could be adjutant to Malek, or a translator in my command. You have a perfect grade in linguistics, don’t you?”
I knew I should have failed at everything. Why didn’t I figure that one out? Why didn’t I let myself fade long ago? Is it because of Cyar? What the hell was I thinking?
I’m not as smart as everyone believes. This proves it.
Before I can speak, he grabs my shoulder, his fury so hot I brace for his fist. A broken nose. But it doesn’t come. Only his face inches from my own. “You listen and listen close. I didn’t sacrifice everything—the blood of my men—to have a son who leaves the hard work to others. I’ve been through hell for you and you would throw it in my face!”
“I never—”
“You have two choices. Top Flight or my command.” He pushes me hard. “Now go sleep off the drink. We’re flying for Rahmet in the morning and Hajari won’t be coming along. If you want to do this on your own, then you’d better get used to a life where he doesn’t throw you a goddamn map every time you need it.”
He gives me a last contemptuous glare, then holsters his pistol and strides back for the bloody traitor.
I stare after him, bleeding inside. “Father, wait!”
He doesn’t turn around.
I don’t know why I thought he would. I don’t even know what I would have said.
Desperation.
Shaking, I retreat inside and I’m fairly sure the whole world’s crumbling beneath me. I head for Mother’s room without thinking. I don’t even know if she’s awake, or sober, but everything’s turned off in my head. Thoughts, words, ideas. The entire brilliant creation of my mind is short-circuiting, and by the time I’m standing in front of her, all I want is to feel her warmth.
She doesn’t need to ask any questions. I’m sure she heard the shot, too.
She rests her head against mine, her arms around me gently. I’m ashamed by how quickly it stills my panicked heart. Seventeen, damn it.