Fantasy of Fire (The Tainted Accords #3)(41)

My mother doesn’t look down from her conversation with my monstrous uncle. She waves a regal hand in the air. There’s no speech today.

“Begin,” she commands.

*

I don’t eat breakfast, still shaking from the most realistic nightmare I’ve had in a long time. I fell asleep to tales of Jovan’s childhood, and when I woke he was gone. I’m glad he hadn’t seen the effect my past terrors still had on me. I’d thought I was past being haunted by mother—at night, anyway.

Olandon finds me, informing me the king is rounding up those I wish to tell. I begin to wish Jovan was keeping me company, leaving my brother to the task of collecting everyone. Olandon seems determined to voice every doubt and concern about revealing my secret I’ve silently had in the last week.

“You know if news gets out about your eyes there will be much trouble becoming Tatum. I don’t understand why you’re facilitating its discovery,” he whispers in furious tones. I don’t bother answering. I’ve wasted my breath for the last two hours while pacing my room. Instead, I focus on convincing myself not to back out.

“I have trouble understanding, and I am your brother.” He grips my shoulders, stopping me mid-pace. “You have a death wish.”

It infuriates me that he’ll be able to see the panic on my face. I wish my veil was on.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this! You clearly don’t want to. It’s that king,” he hisses. “He’s making you do this.” His dislike breaks through my fear. I snort, and then snort again at the disgust on his face at the sound.

I hug my brother around the waist. He’s much taller than me now. I wish he’d grow in other ways.

“Wait here,” I say. I turn to the long seat at the foot of the bed and pick up my veil. I return to my brother.

“You’ve struggled to learn how to understand the feelings of others. You seem to have gained some measure of empathy in your journeys around Osolis, and I can’t wait for the day when you come into your full potential. I know you’ll find it in your own time.” I can see my words hurt him; my frayed temper has made me blunt. “Perhaps, until then, you’ll better understand if you experience my life for yourself,” I say.

I catch his expression as he eyes the veil in my hands. Terror. It stuns me. He’s afraid of the veil? He watches it like it’s about to explode in his face.

“I don’t think I’ve ever realized the pain you’ve gone through, Landon.” Tears choke my voice. His eyes begin to shimmer as I speak. I grip his forearm with my free hand. I finally understand what this material has meant to his life. All the times he cried because I was dragged away, or beaten bloody and left broken on the floor. Every time he had to sneak around to help me, or was prevented from a normal upbringing because of his forbidden sister. All of it was because of the cloth in my hand.

My voice is hoarse. “I’ll share something with you. I didn’t believe it the first time, but I’ve come to be convinced of it.” I hold up the veil. “This is just material. It does what we tell it to do,” I say and feel my face hardening. “It’s the symbol of our mother. And it does not control us anymore.” Something passes between us: wordless, a shift within—an unbreakable determination that our mother will never regain that power. We won’t allow ourselves to be oppressed like that ever again. He nods and I place the veil over his head. The wooden band doesn’t fit him, so I toss it aside.

Olandon takes a few experimental steps and knocks his shin against the long seat. I know exactly what he’s feeling.

“Veni,” he curses, stumbling back in pain. I place a hand on his back when he nears me and he jumps, whirling around.

“I can’t see anything.” He rips it off his head and the material drifts to the ground. “How? How have you done that? How have you even walked?”

I stare down at the veil. “You may have been too young to remember, but I had a very hard time when I was first let out of my room. I only knew the layout of my room, and then the way to Aquin’s, when mother first started allowing me to watch your trainings.”

I don’t think I’ve ever spoken of this. It’s like rubbing at a newly healed cut.

“When I fell for the first time on the very first day outside and heard their laughter and comments, I understood they were my mother’s people. They’d never be mine. I’d hoped to find friends waiting just outside my door once I was freed. Dreams of this kept me sane for years. You can imagine my utter devastation when I learned this wouldn’t happen.”

“I know you memorized the castle,” Olandon says.

I dip my head in acknowledgement. “Yes, I did. After my first humiliation, I’d go out at night to practice. And with time I managed to survive by paying attention to slight movements of people’s bodies: to light disappearing between their fingers, the slightest turning away, or shrug of the shoulders. Anything to make up for being unable to see their facial expressions.” I look over at my younger brother and smile. “I only knew your face because I’d been so close to you, so often. Even now, there are new things I see when I look at you with the veil off.”

Olandon crouches before the veil, not touching it. “I’ve grown up with your promises, your plans for Osolis. Where some children had lullabies, I held on to your words like they were a prophecy that would eventually come to pass. At times I feel betrayed. What has changed that you will not give up everything to see your plans eventuate?”