Page 62 of Dragon Slayer

Vlad caught him with one steadying hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t know.”

“I didn’t…I didn’t…how…” He hyperventilated.

“It’s gone now,” Vlad said. “I burned it out of you.”

Val lifted his head, hair dripping water, and met his brother’s gaze. “You burned it…” And then he understood, breath catching. “Youburned it out of me.”

“I did. And he won’t get the chance to cast it again.”

Emotion crashed over Val like a wave. He drew his knees up and pressed his face to them. Closed his eyes tight, but the tears came anyway, hot and relentless, dripping down his face and into the bathwater. He opened his mouth to take a breath, and a sob spilled out, painful and choked.

Vlad didn’t speak, but his arm was strong and grounding around Val’s shoulders. He held him, and Val cried and cried, until he cried himself to sleep.

~*~

He came to warm and dry, curled up on his side amid downy sheets, head resting on a pillow that smelled of lavender and his brother’s skin. He knew Vlad was there beside him, and opened his eyes to find him sitting propped up against the headboard, legs stretched out in front of him, reading a book with a thoughtful frown. His expression reminded Val of their boyhood, of long tutoring sessions bent over tomes written in Greek and Latin and Slavic, trying to make sense of the tangled knots of history, religion, and art.

“Did you dry my hair?” Val asked, feeling it soft and silky and fresh-smelling against his neck.

Vlad closed the book on one finger and looked over with the mildest interest. It was probably a look that sent the humans running, but it was a rather sweet expression, Val knew from experience. “It was wet. The humans have this device–” He made a face, and a gesture with his hand that mimicked a gun.

Val felt a smile tug at his mouth. “A hair dryer?”

Vlad frowned, shrugged, and glanced away. “It’s useful.”

“So I’ve heard.” He chuckled, just a weak little gust that tweaked at sore muscles in his chest. He felt a pull at the edges of his healing wound, and winced. “It’s funny,” he said, breathless now as the pain tugged at him, “all these humans think I’m the liar, and you’re the straightforward one. They’ve got it all wrong.”

“I’m not a liar,” Vlad countered, turning back to him. “I’m only patient.”

“That’s one word for it. And you never met a grudge you couldn’t hold forever. Atlas carried the world on his shoulders, but you carry all the world’s grudges, brother.”

“I’m patient,” Vlad repeated. “I waited five-hundred years to pay you back for this.” He reached to pull the collar of his shirt aside and reveal the faint white scar across his shoulder, a near mirror-image of the wound he’d given Val.

“That’s not patient, that’s vengeful!” Val countered with a disbelieving laugh.

“Revenge requires patience,” Vlad said seriously, and Val lost it.

He pressed his face into the pillow, wincing as each laugh shook his battered body, but unable to stop. There were tears in his eyes when he finally managed to come to a gasping, snorting halt, still chuckling. “God above. You are an unchanging asshole.”

“I count it among my strengths.”

“Of course you do. What is it you used to say?”

“An eye for an eye,” Vlad stared, and Val chorused along on the rest: “A scar for a scar, a knife for a knife.”

The last of his laughter melted away, leaving him achy and hollow. “I put you in the ground to keep them from killing you outright.”

“I know you did.”

Val’s next breath left his lungs on a shiver. “They’ll never let me go, will they?” He hated how small and pathetic his voice sounded, but there was nothing to be done for it. At the moment, he felt small and pathetic, too.

Vlad’s dark brows slanted low, shifting from their usual sternness to outright hostility. “Do you trust me?”

“I have alwayswantedto trust you, brother.”

“Trust me now. And be patient.”

“No one is as patient as you.”

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