Page 152 of The Eye of the Fifth
‘Taru it is, then,’ Oslan said.
‘When you see Rosary,’ Kyra began, but her throat constricted, heart aching to think of Oslan and Rosary together without her. They would have each other, and that was more than Kyra could ever hope for but… Goddess, she missed her friend. She swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Tell her I’m alright. Tell her that… tell her that I miss her. And tell her I found the Water Warden but I’m yet to get him to turn water into wine. It’s all very disappointing.’
Oslan did not truly smile, and if truth be told Kyra wasn’t entirely sure he remembered how to, but the corners of his lips quirked up. His soft brown eyes, identical to Win’s, found hers. ‘Where will you go?’
‘I have to go back to Phaenon. I left a bit of a mess behind,’ Kyra said, guilt plaguing her soul as she remembered how she’d left Zuriel. The unnatural angle of her limbs. ‘I don’t know if you knew, but-’
‘You’re the Earth Warden,’ Oslan finished for her. ‘I heard a lot of things in that brothel. Humans love to talk.’ He paused. ‘Is that why Lilion let you leave the Arc?’
‘No, she didn’t know I was leaving. After our fight, I was heading to Taru with Rosary. That’s when it… when it happened.’ She didn’t know how much Oslan knew, but she wasn’t sure she could tell him the story without vomiting. She could still feel the power that had surged, could still see her hands drenched in Cristian’s blood, could still see the fissure that split the earth apart. ‘I killed them,’ she rasped. ‘For what they did to them… I killed them all.’
Something like relief crossed Oslan’s features. ‘Good.’
It was a strange thing, to be sat next to her brother again. The brother she’d thought was dead, the brother she’d grieved and mourned. It was stranger still that all that had existed between them as children, as siblings, had disappeared into an unreachable ether. They would never again be those carefree siblings who had once relentlessly teased one another, who had once delighted in the simplicity of star-gazing late at night when they ought to have been sleeping, or stolen cake from the kitchens at the crack of dawn to have an illicit, sugary breakfast in bed.
They didn’t know one another as adults. But perhaps, with time, they could get to know one another again. Perhaps, they could heal together.
Kyra tucked that tiny sliver of hope away. Then she stood, holding out a hand to pull Oslan to his feet. His eyes earnestly scanned her face, and with pain tainting his voice, he said, ‘You look like mother.’ Kyra willed the tears to stay behind her eyes. He promised her, ‘I’ll find Rosary.’
‘Look after each other,’ she replied thickly.
With the knuckle on his forefinger, Oslan nicked underneath her chin, a gesture he’d done countless times when they were children.
Then Kyra watched her brother walk away, finally a free male. And in that moment, there was not one ounce of guilt in her heart for what she had done to make it so.
Chapter Forty Two
The Lone Wolf Returns
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Avaldale, Vrethian.
Kyra.
She shouldn’t have come here. It was foolish and reckless and yet she hadn’t been able to return to the docks just yet. Hadn’t been able to turn her back on the old manor house on top of the hill.
She had to see if they were still there.
Forehead pressed against the cold glass, eyes straining into the darkened hallway, Kyra searched for a hint of movement in the shadows.
Nothing.
They could have been hiding upstairs? Or perhaps there was a ward blocking an outsider’s view-
Even as the thought arose, Kyra knew it wasn’t true. She couldfeelthe abandonment of the manor. It had been empty for some time.
She also knew her family’s disappearance had everything to do with the blood red letters across the porch beneath her feet. The ones that read:TRAITOR.
It too, was definitely not paint.
Upending her skin of water, she poured its contents over the word, swiping at it with her feet. Well, it didn’t spelltraitoranymore. But it did look like a fucking crime scene.
Win would never have fled by choice. She’d spent a hundred and fifty years stubbornly rooted to the place.
Which meant she had felt threatened. By the Union or her fae kin, or both. Whomever it had been, they had struck fear into her heart, enough to make her abandon all that she had held so dear for over a century. Her grandmother, despite her obstinate faults, would have gone to the end of the world and back to protect her family. Even if it meant leaving her home and the legacy of the Daeiros name behind.
With all she had learned about her grandmother through Naal, the softer side she had never truly seen, the thought made Kyra’s stomach twist.
