Page 39 of The Sundered Blade

“I’d be lying if I claimed I’d never thought about it.” Danric’s dark eyes bored into his, piercing and serious.

“If you’ve decided this world would be better off without me, I suppose there’s not much I can say. And little I could do about it,” Vaniell said lightly, hoping to the heavens that he’d managed to conceal how much this pained him. How much he wished their history had been different.

But unless Danric had found his study, read his journals, and chosen to believe his words… The only version of Vaniell he could possibly know was the wastrel he’d spent years loathing. The brother who defied every order, disappeared when he was needed, and refused to do his duty to his kingdom. Everything Danric abhorred.

“Little you could do?” Danric looked incredulous. “That is perhaps the greatest absurdity you have ever uttered, and I have been listening to you be absurd since we were children.”

“I…” Vaniell truly had no idea what to say to that.

Danric stepped forward, and everyone else in the room began to back away as he moved towards Vaniell with a slow, measured stride. “Over the past year, I’ve begun to put together numerous whispers and tidbits of information that only made sense once I understood what you were trying to do. Once I realized you’ve been lying to everyone since you were barely old enough to shave.”

Vaniell braced himself. This speech had been many years in the making, and he owed it to his brother to listen till the end.

“For overten years, you carried the weight of this terrible truth.” Danric’s voice was shaking now. “You were utterly alone, but you mastered your fear again and again, took the brunt of everyone’s disappointment and disgust, and faced every day with that outrageous smile, because you thought no one else would believe you. And because the fate of our people mattered to you.”

Vaniell could have been pushed over by a slight breeze. Fallen to his knees and wept. It was not what he had expected his brother to say—not even close. Where was the accusation? The judgment? Where was the hurt and frustration?

Danric finally came close enough to reach out and clasp Vaniell’s shoulders, a world of heartfelt emotion in his dark eyes. “I can only say that I am sorry. Sorry I was so blind. Sorry that I did not see what that man was doing to you and to Mother. Sorry that I failed you both and left you to bear this burden alone.” His eyes closed, and he shook his head. “So don’t ever say again that there is little you can do. You have done more to protect the Five Thrones than anyone else in this room, and if you’ll still have me… I am beyond proud to call you my brother.”

There were no words. For once in his life, Vaniell had nothing to say, no humor to offer, only a quick nod, with his lips pressed tightly together to keep them from trembling.

And then Danric’s arms went around his shoulders in an embrace—swift and fierce and filled with all the words they could not say.

“Thank the heavens.” A quiet soprano voice intruded on the moment, breaking the tension before the mood in the room grew truly maudlin. “I was worried that I might have to force the two of you together and glare until you admitted the truth, but it seems you did not require my assistance after all.”

Seemingly having emerged from thin air, a slender auburn-haired woman regarded them from across the room with a fond smile. Danric paused to clasp his brother’s shoulder one last time—his eyes suspiciously red—before striding towards her, bending down, and placing a tender kiss on the top of her head.

“I’m so sorry if we disturbed you, love.”

So this was Vaniell’s sister-in-law. The woman Vaniell had once been engaged to marry—Evaraine, Queen of Farhall.

She might be small and appear deceptively frail, but the strength of character in her green eyes would have given pause to even a bolder man than Vaniell.

Those eyes turned up to her husband in evident disapproval. “And you would have been in a great deal of trouble had younotdisturbed me. You know perfectly well I wished to be notified the moment Kyrion returned. It is only a happy bonus that Vaniell is here as well.”

“Vaniell.” The voice came from behind him and raised the hairs on the back of his neck. “The enchanter Prince of Garimore?”

Vaniell whirled to see the young female night elf regarding him out of glowing eyes, her lip curled to reveal her teeth in a silent snarl.

“Brother… Isn’t this the one you promised I could eat?”

Suddenly Danric burst out laughing, a sound that Vaniell would have sworn he had never heard before. His brother’s eyes were bright with amusement as he surveyed the room, his arm wrapped protectively around his wife’s shoulders. Then he looked at Vaniell, grinned, and winked.

“Welcome to Farhall,” he said.

CHAPTER12

It was only a brief ride to the city gate the following morning, and the three of them accomplished it in silence, moving along at the pace of the other travelers that now shared the road with them in increasing numbers. Whatever had passed between Leisa and her mother the night before, Karreya had not been privy to, but it had clearly not gone well. By the light of the early morning sun, they seemed determined to act like strangers.

The road split as it approached the walls of Hanselm, and at the junction, they paused, forcing riders and pedestrians to flow around them as both Leisa and Senaya regarded one another while wearing frozen expressions of utter indifference.

Which were, of course, a lie. It hurt Karreya to look at them, so she stared instead at the walled city and wondered what it might be like. Similar to Viali? Or utterly different?

“Where will you go?” Leisa did not sound as if she cared one way or the other.

“South, I believe. I have spent enough winter seasons in the north, and have no desire to repeat the experience.”

“And… if I have more questions? About what we spoke of along the road?”

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