Page 172 of Mother of Death and Dawn

“I can hunt,” Brayan said.

“We can buy meat, I am sure.”

“I—” His jaw ground. “I think Max and I should go hunt.”

I could feel both Tisaanah and Sammerin’s stares drilling into the side of my face.

The absolute last thing I wanted to do today was go anywhere with Brayan, let alone somewhere secluded with weapons. My feelings towards him were so complicated they didn’t even make sense anymore—a massive tangle of grief and guilt and anger that I couldn’t pull apart even if I wanted to, which I most certainly did not.

I forced myself to meet his eyes, and I was taken aback by how abjectly sad he looked.

“It’s good to get out,” he said, a little hoarsely. “Go somewhere alone. Spend time in nature. On… days like today.”

“Maybe we should all stay together,” Sammerin suggested, in a noble attempt to give me a way out.

But Brayan had just sounded so… desperate.

“Fine,” I said, surprising even myself. “Let’s go hunt.”

* * *

Together,we moved through the underbrush. The forests in Threll were odd, not as green or dense as the ones in Ara, and full of tall, ivory-barked trees with few branches. It made it easier to spot animals, but harder not to be spotted by them. We moved silently. It was a good excuse not to talk.

It was Brayan who finally said it. “You know what day it is today?”

What kind of question was that? Of course I knew what day it was today. “Yes.”

“Do you usually… do… anything?”

“Drink myself into a stupor,” I said.

“Do you want to—?”

I scoffed. “No.” I’d come to realize that alcohol usually caused more problems than it solved.

“I usually… do this. Go hunting somewhere. By myself.”

If I hadn’t been trying so hard to keep myself together, I might have found it a little funny that Brayan’s tactic for dealing with unwelcome emotion was running off to go stab things in the woods. Farlione men. Sensitive to the very end.

“I shouldn’t have said what I did to you,” he said, after a long, uncomfortable silence. “Before. Back in Sarilla.”

I didn’t want to talk about this. I wanted to be by myself and not talk to anyone about anything that felt this terrible, ever, let alone with Brayan. Doing this had been a mistake.

I thought,You have every right to scream at me for whatever the fuck you want. You don’t even know how much you have that right.

I said, “It’s fine.”

“The truth is,” Brayan said—and Ascended fucking above, I despised his sudden desire to talk through his feelings—“I didn’t want to find you, back then. I was grateful you weren’t there when I got home.” He stopped and turned to me, and even though I knew better, I did the same, meeting his stare. It was oddly childlike, despite the fact that he looked every bit the hardened warrior he was. “I didn’t want to have to look at anyone who looked like me.”

A pang of sharp, familiar pain rang out in my chest. I hated how much I knew how that felt. I spent ten years alone, hating myself, and I was both obsessed with the thought of Brayan and utterly repulsed by the idea of seeing him again. Some of it was guilt, of course. But just as powerful was the physicality of it, the sheer gut punch of seeing eyes so similar to the ones that looked back at me from the flames that day.

How strongly he resembled our father.

I didn’t want to look at anyone who looked like me.

The image of Sella’s daughter, a little girl who looked so much like Brayan, flashed through my mind, and a reluctant understanding clicked into place.

“It was just—a lot to do alone.” Brayan turned back to the brush.

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