Page 43 of The War of Wings
We stood, throwing stones into the water, watching the waves pummel and swallow them up before pulling them into the sea.
“So, tell me,” I finally said.
“Tell you what?”
I raised a brow at him, but he didn’t look my way. No, he just kept throwing stones. “Something’s been wrong since Eserene.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Nothing’s wrong.”
I stared at his profile. His eyes were shadowed. His jaw was scruffy, his cheeks sunken. “Look at me.”
He paused, a stone in the hand hanging at his side. He didn’t turn to me. Instead, he continued staring out over the waves, past the drivas and to the horizon beyond.
“Look at me, Tobyas.”
“I’m not Tobyas anymore,” he snapped, finally turning to me. The sunset bouncing off the sea reflected in his stare, the darkness of his eyes turning it a muted blue. “I’m Miles.”
“Okay. Miles.”
“Tobyas died a long time ago,” he mumbled. “And Miles should’ve died back in Eserene.”
I was silent for a moment, searching his stare for proof that his words were just a cop out. He couldn’t actually mean that. “What are you talking about?”
“I should’ve died back in Eserene. I shouldn’t have made it out of there.” His words were hard, like they were painful to speak. Something like desperation pulled at his features. “I wish… I wish I hadn’t made it out of there.”
My chest seized. I had no idea what to say to him. I tried to keep my face neutral, keep it from showing the spiral my brain had been thrust into. “Listen, brother, I understand that dying in battle is a noble way to go, but–”
“It has nothing to do with being noble,” he cut in, the anger in his voice rising. His breaths sawed in and out of him, his shoulders rising and falling as he stared me down. “Look at me, Cal.”
My brows furrowed. “I am looking at you.”
“No,lookat me. Really, really look at me.”
I leaned closer slightly. All I could see was the sunset’s reflection in his eyes. Except…No.That wasn’t daylight, and it wasn’t a reflection. A tiny, almost unnoticeable blue flame burned in the center of his eye.
I reared back. “What the hell is that?”
Miles turned away, swallowing hard. He picked up another stone, this time throwing with all his strength and letting out a gravelly shout of frustration as it sailed through the sky. The drivas headed for shore, for the field outside the city to sleep for the night. I craned my neck to watch them soar overhead, their wingbeats kicking up sand as they passed over us.
My brother finally turned back to me, resting a clenched fist on his chest. He was out of breath, his jaw clenched like the words he spoke were painful. “Malosym… His strike did something to me. It…leftsomething in me.”
I eyed him, willing the panic to stay low in my belly instead of rising up my throat like it wanted to. “What do you mean?”
“It’s…” He let out an exasperated sigh, his brows upturned as he beat his fist into his chest. “I can feel it here. When the wound closed, I think it closed around Malosym’s power and trapped it in my chest. It feels like there’s something foreign in my body. I’ve been fighting it since I woke up.”
“What do you mean you’ve beenfightingit?”
He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “I… I feel this urge, this sensation sometimes. It’s like a pull to do things I don’t want to do.”
“What things?” I spoke the words carefully, like each one was a ginger step on the surface of a thin pane of glass and if I wasgentle enough, it wouldn’t shatter and plunge me into a terrifying truth.
“Small things,” he said. “I’ve been able to resist all of them.”
I kept my voice as calm and even as I could. “Give me an example.”
Miles sucked a breath through gritted teeth. He didn’t want to tell me any more than I wanted to hear it. “I was tempted to suggest a longer path to Araqina, one that would slow down the mission,” he finally ground out. “That’s one. It’s easy for me to resist these thoughts. Again, they’re all small things, but…I know that’shimin my brain, not myself.”
It was an effort to keep my breathing steady. That glass beneath me seemed to grow more brittle with each step as I treaded further into this conversation. “Miles…”
