Page 9 of Shadows of Winter

“I guess that’s sufficient. I appreciate you trying to keep that hulking troglodyte from pummeling me.”

“Any time. If the family didn’t send you, where’d you get the seed money?”

“It’s my savings.”

“Twelve gods, Fray.” Kaylina slumped against the door. Now, she really had to get her brother out of there. “Did you tell Mom you were coming? Grandma? Anyone?”

“I left a note.”

Yeah, that was his style. No direct confrontation.

Kaylina couldn’t blame him. Confrontations tended to escalate, even with those you loved. Or especially with those you loved.

“Did you leave a note? Or was it an essay detailing the reasons for your departure over multiple pages?” She tried to smile for him, certain she already knew the answer.

Frayvar hesitated. “There were multiple pages. There was also a business plan. And a pro forma.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“A financial statement calculating potential earnings based on projections and presumptions.”

“So, it was the typical runaway letter.” Her second smile was more genuine, though the weight of responsibility threatened to send her back to the bench. More than ever, she felt it was her duty to keep him safe.

Rising on tiptoes, she checked the bars in the window, attempting to twist them. Their coldness bit into her palms. She supposed blowing hot air on them wouldn’t be enough for Frayvar’s expansion of metal.

“May I ask you something?” he asked with more diffidence than usual.

“Yup.”

“Is this adventure truly about proving yourself… or is it about Domas?”

“It has nothing to do with him.”

Liar, her mind accused, a memory rearing up like an angry horse. Domas backing away from their bed with a blanket around his waist and scowling. “What is wrong with you? You look so normal.”

He’d said that more than once when they’d been together. You look so normal.

Strangely damning words. Like if she’d been born clubfooted with four eyes, her mood swings, her funks, as Frayvar called them, might have been more acceptable.

Kaylina shook her head, reluctant, as always, to open up to anyone, even family members. But Frayvar had come clean to her. Didn’t she owe it to him to tell the truth? Especially now?

“Silana said it was,” he added.

Silana. Their always-smiling older sister who had a husband, two daughters, and happiness and contentment others could only aspire to.

“She wasn’t there,” was all Kaylina said.

“Domas broke up with you, though, right?”

“It was mutual.”

“A simultaneous and equally desired agreement to part ways?” Frayvar sounded skeptical for someone with zero experience with relationships. Maybe logic prompted the question rather than intuition.

“Something like that. Breaking up might have been what prompted the timing of me leaving, but it wasn’t everything. For years, I’ve had this dream.”

“So, it was the catalyst,” Frayvar said.

“Sure.”

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