Page 16 of Daughter of the Dark Sun
The friends met years back as young children after Adon became lost in Myrniar’s Refuge, alone in a place he did not belong. Therat had his suspicions about the girl, but she only brought joy to Adon’s life. Kind, soft-spoken, humble: all qualities Therat envied. Adon and Ninann grew to be fast friends, bound for Tír is Isneha once she came of age and the Academy requested more recruits.
The Lady Ninann of House Isht’iri. If Adon’s luck held and noliraesdeclared themselves after she came of age, Lord Émerin agreed to a marriage—if Ninann agreed too. Despite lacking a formal waveweaver’s education, Adon already worked with the Skyweavers to bring summer rains to the desert city. The Named Houses always sought those with inborn talent to marry into their families. Though Ninann brought an ugly source ofjealousy into Therat’s life, only a fool would bring them up to Adon. He could ask for no higher blessing than the woman’s hand in marriage. The only way—Therat hoped, at least—his brother could escape the dark doom haunting their family.
“Adon. Humor me for a moment,” Therat said, interrupting the comforting blanket of silence. “If anevranenithwas born to one of the Named Houses, what would they do? They are the favored of Myrniar, are they not? Do you think they would kill the child or hide them behind the Wall?”
Adon took a moment to reply, head of black curls shaking ever so slightly. “You know why we have to hide, Therat. What do you think? What good does it do to wish for a new past?” Adon shifted away from the hearth as he spoke. His voice lost the light-heartedness it held before. He sounded guarded, tense, each word chosen with care.
“I do not wish to make a new past for myself. I am merely… curious. I know so little of their customs. And I thought since you know a lady of a Named House, you mi—”
“No.” Adon’s terse reply gave Therat pause. “No, I would think it the same as us. They would be killed. Just as the others. It’s why we hide.”
Therat stared at his brother striding into the small kitchen opposite the hearth. Adon answered no so strongly, as if denying his thoughts.
He knows something.
“Even if they were one of Myrniar’s Daughters?”
Adon gasped. Quiet, but enough for Therat to confirm his suspicions.
“It is ill-advised to speak of the Houses of the Sun in such a manner,darhír. You would speak ill of my friend, the Lady Ninann of House Isht’iri,” Adon said acidly, turning around with a glower on his face. “Rumors bring down good people. You should know this.”
Before Therat could defend himself, their grandfather ambled in, the soft rhythmic thump of his cane on the packed dirt floor like the ending bell of a fighting match. The anger left the twins’ faces, though it lingered in the air, ruining the calm peace from a few minutes before.
Nazith crossed to an old and well-worn chair closest to the fire by Therat, lifting his faint violet eyes as he passed. The elderly man neared 340 years old, a milestone even for those from the Named Houses with celestial blood. Though bent and gnarled with age, the man’s mind remained sharp.
“You may as well finish bickering, I already heard the rest. My hearing has not gotten that poor yet.” Nazith looked at Therat as he spoke, watching for the man’s reaction.
“I-I wasn’t trying to insult anyone, Adon. Forgive me. I think too much these days.” The words sounded hollow to Therat, but they appeared to appease his brother and grandfather well enough.
Adon rejoined them in front of the fire. The conversation drifted to the day ahead, what new tasks awaited Adon as he petitioned for his place among the clergy of Myrniar. Therat let their voices drift past. Thoughts turned toward his brother’s suspicious reactions to the questions aboutevranenithand the Named Houses. He had to know something.
Anevranenithlived behind the Wall. A woman near their age, kept a shameful secret from the world. A Daughter of Myrniar. An Eásiri, a descendant of the gods blessed with long life and powers unimaginable.
His Mireithren.
The thought made Therat hot with anger. Why did Adon lie to him? Why did he even care? Mumbling his goodbyes, Therat stumbled into their bedroom and fell into a deep, uninterrupted sleep. Exhaustion from the past four nights of staying up finally caught up to the man.
By the time Theratawoke, the sun angled high in the southwestern sky and the fire was long dead in the hearth. A cool winter breeze blew through an open window, taking with it all the comforting smells of the morning. Adon left a note in a small, scrawling hand on the mantle; Therat left it unread. Adon could only be in one place: with Ninann at the Sunmaiden’s Temple, the same as every other day from recent memory.
Though Therat usually craved isolation, this time it proved too much. The heavy silence let his thoughts run wild as anger tugged at his heart.
He hated the fact he cared so much about Mireithren, how she became an obsession in an instant. The very idea of aliraessickened him. It served as a reminder of everything gone foul and astray in his life. Who could love a killer, deranged by the Shadow-weave?
Tales had come to the desert from the far reaches of Hylaea, how the Shadow-weavers from times past devastated villages and ruined lives when they succumbed at last to their tainted powers. Therat knew his end, whether he wanted it or not. He had made peace with the fact as well as he could. He would stay to see his brother safely off to the city of Weavers, then lose himself in the vastness of the desert until death came for him in one form or another.
But now he faced an obstacle. A constant, inrscapable ache formed if he turned his thoughts for too long from the woman he named Mireithren. How could one person make him question everything he thought an undeniable fact in his life? If only hecould find her, talk to her somehow. He wanted to prove to himself he wasn’t crazy.
Why did Adon react so strangely to Therat’s questions about the Named Houses? As thoughts turned toward his brother, the suspicions from before grew, a nagging thought at the back of his mind.
He knows. Maybe not who it is, exactly. But he knows of whom I speak.
“Why would you not tell me?” Therat yelled, his voice thundering through the quiet house.
He paced across the wide front room, mind swirling with a thousand thoughts. It made no sense. The woman, his brother, the obsessive thoughts compelling him to sit night after night on the Market rooftops.
The twins had few secrets between them, only Therat’s shame and guilt over the blood on his hands. What guilt could his brother harbor? Therat tried to convince himself he overreacted earlier, but Adon’s fervent defense of the Named Houses left behind an uncomfortable itch.
Anevranenithin their midst. Could she be the reason his thoughts turned wild and full of malice over the years? Once, the boy controlled the Shadow-weave, using it without fear, hearing the siren call of the maiden in the void. But something changed after his sixteenth nameday. In the dying month of Mireile, as the year came to an end, Therat woke up one day with dark whispers in his mind and dread so heavy he felt his heart collapsing.
