Thorn could only stand there and blink, feeling cold all over even if summer was well on the way. She’d always supposed she’d had quite the tough time growing up. Now she learned that while she raged in her fine house because her mother didn’t call her by the name she liked, there had been children picking through the dung for bones to chew. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Cause Brand didn’t say and you didn’t ask. We begged. I stole.” Rin gave a bitter little smile. “But Brand said he had to do good. So he worked. He worked at the docks and the forges. He worked anywhere folk would give him work. He worked like a dog and more than once he was beaten like one. I got sick and he got me through it and I got sick again and he got me through it again. He kept on dreaming of being a warrior, and having a place on a crew, a family always around him. So he went to the training square. He had to beg and borrow the gear, but he went. He’d work before he trained and he’d work after, and even after that if anyone needed help he’d be there to help. Do good, Brand always said, and folk’ll do good for you. He was a good boy. He’s become a good man.”
“I know that,” growled Thorn, feeling the hurt all well up fresh, sharper than ever for the guilt that welled up with it, now. “He’s the best man I know. This isn’t bloody news to me!”
Rin stared at her. “Then how could you treat him this way? If it wasn’t for him I’d be gone through the Last Door, and so would you, and this is the thanks—”
Thorn might have been wrong about a few things, and she might not have known a few others she should have, and she might have been way too wrapped up in herself to see what was right under her nose, but there was a limit on what she’d take.
“Hold on, there, Brand’s secret sister. No doubt you’ve opened my eyes wider than ever to my being a selfish arse. But me and him were oarmates. On a crew you stand with the men beside you. Yes, he was there for me, but I was there for him, and—”
“Not that! Before. When you killed that boy. Edwal.”
“What?” Thorn felt queasier still. “I remember that day well enough and all Brand did was bloody stand there.”
Rin gaped at her. “Did you two talk at all that year away?”
“Not about Edwal, I can tell you that!”
“Course you didn’t.” Rin closed her eyes and smiled as though she understood it all. “He’d never take the thanks he deserves, the stubborn fool. He didn’t tell you.”
Thorn understood nothing. “Tell me what, damn it?”
“He went to Father Yarvi.” And Rin took Thorn gently but firmly by the shoulder and let the words fall one by one. “He told him what happened on the beach. Even though he knew it’d cost him. Master Hunnan found out. So it cost him his place on the king’s raid, and his place as a warrior, and everything he’d hoped for.”
Thorn made a strange sound then. A choked-off cluck. The sound a chicken makes when its neck gets wrung.
“Brand went to Father Yarvi,” she croaked.
“Yes.”
“Brand saved my life. And lost his place for it.”
“Yes.”
“Then I mocked him over it, and treated him like a fool the whole way down the Divine and the Denied and the whole way back up again.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he just bloody say—” And that was when Thorn saw something gleaming just inside the collar of Rin’s vest. She reached out, hooked it with a trembling finger, and eased it into the light.
Beads. Glass beads, blue and green.
The ones Brand bought that day in the First of Cities. The ones she’d thought were for her, then for some other lover back in Thorlby. The ones she now saw were for the sister she’d never bothered to ask if he had.
Thorn made that squawking sound again, but louder.
Rin stared at her as if she’d gone mad. “What?”
“I’m such a stupid shit.”
“Eh?”
“Where is he?”
“Brand? At my house. Our house—”
“Sorry.” Thorn was already backing away. “I’ll talk to you about the sword later!” And she turned and started running for the gate.
HE LOOKED BETTER THAN ever. Or maybe she just saw him differently, knowing what she knew.
“Thorn.” He looked surprised to see her and she could hardly blame him. Then he looked worried. “What’s wrong?”
She realized she must look worse even than usual and wished she hadn’t run all the way, or at least waited to knock until she’d caught her breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead. But she’d been dancing around this far too long. Time to face it, sweaty or not.
“I talked to your sister,” she said.
He looked more worried. “What about?”
“About you having a sister, for one thing.”
“That’s no secret.”
“That might not be.”
He looked even more worried. “What did she tell you?”
“That you saved my life. When I killed Edwal.”
He winced. “I told her not to say anything!”
“Well, that didn’t work.”
“Reckon you’d best come in. If you want to.” He stepped back from the door and she followed him into the shadowy hallway, heart pounding harder than ever. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”