Page 24 of Silver & Smoke
Torj realized he was still holding the scroll Wren had given him. ‘And this?’
‘That’s her last known location, as discovered by your friend the strategist. It was one of his sources who uncovered the connection to me and reported it back to him, and then Wren.’
‘And you used your influence to send me out to deal with those cursed bears, why?’ Torj said slowly, his voice dangerously low.
Darian sighed heavily. ‘I had to get you far away from it all. While I had your grandmother shipped off, while my father destroyed the shelter, while there was all manner of corrupt political dealings in the works. I knew if you got wind of even a fraction of what was going on, you’d never be safe. Either by his orders, or by your own recklessness.’ Darian cleared his throat as though to make a point. ‘You would have gone after him and got yourself killed in the process. Or worse, sent to the Scarlet Tower. My father knew guards at that place... I couldn’t let you wind up there, Torj.’
‘I was a Warsword—’
‘But not untouchable. Your friend Wilder Hawthorne proved that during the last war, didn’t he?’ Darian cut in fiercely. ‘I did what I had to do to keep the people I love safe. Haven’t you ever had to keep a secret like that? It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, hiding this from you.’
Torj remained standing by the chair, his knuckles white around the splintered wood. The scroll crumpled in his other hand. ‘So you decided for me? Just like that? You let me believe for decades that the only family I had left was gone?’ His voice broke on the last word, and the rage that had been simmering beneath the surface threatened to boil over. The irony wasn’t lost on him that not all that long ago, he had done the same thing to Wren.
‘I did what I thought—’
‘What you thought was best?’ Torj laughed bitterly. ‘We’ve been here before, Devereux. You deciding what’s best for me without my consent. You’ve always known better, haven’t you? Even as a boy. Remember when you convinced me we could run away together? You got a stern lecture from your mother, while I couldn’t leave my bed for days after what my father did.’
A flash of pain crossed Darian’s face. ‘That’s not fair, Torj. We were children.’
‘And now? What’s your excuse now?’ Torj demanded. ‘Do you have any idea what it was like? Searching for Vara year after year,clinging to some desperate hope that she was alive, only to eventually give her up for dead?’
Darian took a step towards him, but Torj raised a hand to stop him, staring at the scroll.
‘She’s truly alive? After all this time?’
‘She’s alive,’ Darian confirmed. ‘I’ve checked in over the years when I could, helped where I could. Mainly I encouraged her to move around as much as possible. She has only stayed away to protect my mother from my father. If he found her...’
Darian didn’t need to finish that sentence. Torj knew exactly what Lucian Devereux was capable of – the same as his own father had been, only with more influence, more resources, more power.
‘I’m truly sorry for all the pain I have caused you, for robbing you of the only family you had left.’ Darian’s polished veneer cracked, revealing the weary, broken person beneath. ‘For what it’s worth, I lost the only brother I’d ever had that same day.’
It was the closest Darian had come to resembling the friend Torj had once known as a boy. Those were words he would have said back then, when they were young and both trying to break free of their fathers’ hold.
Torj stared at him, trying to reconcile the boy he’d once called brother with the man who had kept such a devastating secret from him. The man who had let him grieve needlessly for years.
‘So why now?’ Torj asked roughly. ‘Why tell me now, when you’ve kept this secret for decades?’
‘I want a world without my father. Without men like him. The midrealms festers when they are at the helm, and I am tired of living in the poison they spread. I was born tired of it. But years ago, dear old Lucian started to suspect my wavering loyalty. He put conditions in place for my inheritance. Things that need... untangling.’
‘Like what?’ Torj pressed.
‘If you must know, there’s a rather complex succession plan, with legal safeguards that would divert any inheritance from me if hedied under suspicious circumstances... Then there’s the required approval of his bannermen before I take over any of his land assets. The noble houses are all linked. Not to mention that theremaybe a piece of incriminating evidence or two that dear Lucian holds against me. I need those found and destroyed.’
‘And what does any of this have to do with Wren?’
‘With Wren and her strategist’s help, I’ve been able to consult with legal scholars who understand the intricacies of inheritance law. With our united visits to Houses Briar and Pendelton, we’ve positioned ourselves favourably with the bannermen. And the evidence... Well, that’s being dealt with separately. When the time is right, Wren has promised to end Lucian for me.’
‘She means to poison him?’ Torj guessed.
‘It’s her specialty, isn’t it?’ Darian replied with a hint of his usual smirk. ‘In the meantime, I’m also not opposed to helping her uncover whatever poison ails you, or Furies save us, she might add the lot of us to her ledger.’
Torj tried to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. ‘This engagement... What is it to you?’
‘It’s exactly what she told you it was – a means to an end.’ Darian’s smile widened then. ‘Though watching you squirm has been an unexpected pleasure... It’s like I’ve stolen your toys all over again.’
‘Still can’t get your own toys, Devereux?’ Torj said, but there was no bite in it. A ghost of a smile threatened the corner of his mouth.
Silence stretched between them, a reckoning of decades of grief and suppressed childhood memories.
