Page 165 of Veinblood
His parries start coming late. His feet stumble on footwork drills we learned together. The brother who was once the better swordsman is buckling under my attack.
Blood runs down both our faces now. The cut across his ribs weeps steadily, while my shoulder bears a gash from a strike that I almost avoided.
This is what we are now. Brothers who once shared everything, spilling each other’s blood in a tomb beneath the earth.
Our swords lock at the crossguards, bringing us so close I can see my reflection in his gaze. Close enough to smell the scent of his sweat. Close enough to see the brother I grew up with trapped behind enemy eyes.
“I remember who you were,” I whisper. “Before the Authority. Before you chose power over family.”
Something passes across his face. Gone before I can name it.
He breaks the lock with a vicious twist that sends sparks flying from our blades.
His strike at my head is pure muscle memory. I duck under the blow and drive my fist into his wounded ribs, feeling bones crack under my knuckles. He staggers backward, blood frothing on his lips, but his eyes burn with the fever of a dying man who refuses to fall.
“Do you remember when Father first taught us to fight? You cried when you gave me a black eye. Nothing more than a sniveling brat.”
His blade comes in low, angling for my kidneys. I twist away, letting it slice through empty air, then grab his wrist and drive my knee toward his elbow. He jerks free before I can make contact, but my sword still finds the meat of his thigh, opening another wound that sends fresh blood flowing.
“You apologized.” He presses forward, despite the injury. “Even though I’d been trying to hurt you worse. Even though I’d called you a baby in front of the weapons master. You still said you were sorry for marking my face.”
We exchange a flurry of cut and thrusts, but neither of us can gain a decisive advantage. We still know each other too well, have spent too many years studying together. Every attack is met with the perfect counter, every opening closed before it can be exploited.
The fight is brutal and exhausting. We are mirrors of each other, shaped by the same childhood, and divided by the choices we made.
“You always were too concerned with how other people feel,” Sereven gasps, his breathing growing more labored. “Always too soft.”
But I’m not soft now. Now I’m the predator, and he’s the prey. I force him back against the wall with a series of strikes that leave no room for counterattack. His parries grow weaker, his blade dropping as exhaustion and blood loss sap his strength.
“That’s why I could never let you rule.” He can barely lift his sword now. Each word costs him precious breath. “Your constant mercy would have destroyed everything.”
“My mercy?” The question comes out as a snarl. “You want to talk about mercy? You, who murdered our mother in cold blood? It wasn’t me who destroyed everything. That was you and the Authority.” I pause, watching as he struggles to lift his blade. “You’re dying, Sereven. Whatever the crystal did to you, your body is failing.”
“Bodies are replaceable.” He thrusts again, but it’s slow, and easily parried. “Ideas endure. The Authority will continue my work.”
“The Authority is broken. Your army has scattered. You built order on fear, and fear dies with those who wield it.”
“I built it ontruth!” He stumbles, catches himself, and straightens with visible effort. “I built it on the recognition that some deserve power, and others need to serve.”
His final assault is a desperate lunge by a man who knows he’s already dead. But there’s something heartbreaking in it too, something that reminds me of the boy who never knew when to quit, who’d keep fighting at my back even when he was outmatched, out of pure stubborn pride. I sidestep his attack and bring my pommel down hard. He falls back against the wall, blood spreading across his tunic in a dark stain that grows larger with each breath. His head sags for a second before he forces it back up.
For the first time in decades, I see his face without the Authority mask—the features I remember on a brother who guarded my back, before everything went wrong.
I lift my sword with a hand that shakes despite my effort to control it. The blade’s tip finds the hollow of his throat.
“I dreamed of this moment,” I whisper. “For twenty-seven years, while I rotted away in that tower, I dreamed of this. I thought it would bring me pleasure. Justice served.”
“It doesn’t though, does it?” His reply is just as quiet, each word a struggle. Blood bubbles on his lips. “You always did have too much heart, little brother.”
He’s right. There is no triumph in this moment. There is no sense of justice served, or wrongs made right. There is only the terrible knowledge that I am about to destroy the last piece of my childhood, the only person left who remembers what I was like before the world burned.
My sword arm trembles, and his bloodied hand reaches up to wrap around my wrist. His grip is weak now, but it’s the samehand that used to pull me up when I fell, that taught me to skip stones by the river.
“I know what I became.” His voice grows weaker with each word. “I know what I did to you. To our family. And to everyone who stood against the Authority.” His eyes find mine, and for a moment the years fall away. “But you have to finish this, Sacha. You know you do. If you don’t. If you allow me to live, I won’t stop. Ican’tstop.”
His grip on my wrist tightens with the last of his strength. His other hand lifts to touch my cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and in his eyes I don’t see the High Commander, or the man the Authority used to betray me, but my brother. The one who taught me to read by the fire in our father’s study. Who smuggled treats from the kitchen when I was sick.
