The Wish Granter (Ravenspire #2)(21)
Ari met Cleo’s wild gaze and tried to come up with a plan, but panic clawed at her.
No one was coming to save them.
They were on their own.
EIGHT
A HUSH HUNG over the steep hill that held the pauper’s cemetery in Kosim Thalas. Somewhere below, merchants hawked their wares and ferrymen dipped oars into the city’s canals and bumped their narrowboats against the landing platforms scattered throughout the market, but high on the windswept, grassy hillside, there was only the occasional caw of a seabird and the profound silence of the dead.
Sebastian climbed the narrow stairs that were carved into the ground between row upon row of small, plain stones and glanced over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone.
Not that he worried his mother would drag herself out of her drug-induced stupor to visit her eldest son’s resting place. Or that his father would return from Balavata and take it upon himself to examine the results of his handiwork. Still, Sebastian felt exposed on the open hillside with his back to the road, and he quickened his pace.
Thirteen stairs between each flattened terrace that wrapped around the hillside. Five hundred fifty-nine stairs to reach the forty-fourth terrace. Ninety-eight gravestones to the right, just beyond the gnarled trunk of an olive tree that had long since stopped producing fruit.
Grief was a dull blade pressing relentlessly against an old wound. Sebastian rubbed his hand against his heart as if he could somehow ease the ache.
Crouching beside his brother’s grave, he traced his fingers lightly over the name he’d clumsily carved into the stone six months ago in the days between his brother’s death and the graveside memorial that only Sebastian had attended.
Parrish Vaughn, Beloved Brother
He’d left off the words “and son.” His brother deserved to be buried without the taint of their father touching his final resting place.
“I got a job,” he said quietly while the wind whispered through branches of the olive tree and the sun baked its heat into the gravestones. “I know it sounds crazy, but I’m working for the king now. I live at the palace—well, actually, I live in a little room attached to the king’s arena. I’m the weapons master.”
If he concentrated, he could almost remember what his brother’s laugh had sounded like. What it had felt like to have Parrish loop an arm around Sebastian’s neck and ruffle his hair while he teased him about being smarter than the other kids on the street. So smart, Sebastian. So stubborn. If anyone makes it out of these slums without first working for Teague, it will be my little brother.
It was cold comfort to prove his brother right.
Another glance over his shoulder confirmed that he was still alone, and he brushed loose grass from Parrish’s stone. “I’m earning a decent wage now. I have to deal with the nobility to get it, but they aren’t all bad. I met the princess, and she’s nice.”
Nice wasn’t the right word for Princess Arianna, but he wasn’t sure what would fit better. How did you describe someone who dressed like she didn’t want to be noticed but looked everyone in the eye? Someone who treated a servant like an equal but commanded the nobility with the confidence of someone who hadn’t spent a second’s time worrying about the consequences of displeasing them?
It didn’t matter. He had more important things to discuss with his brother.
A faint sound reached him, and he twisted to see a pair of women in faded blue shawls slowly climbing the stairs.
Turning back to Parrish’s stone, he said, “I can’t stay long today. The princess has me making weapons, and she didn’t give me much time to do it. I just wanted you to know that I’ve found a good place to settle for now. I’m safe. I’m still bringing food to Mother each week, though I don’t stay long. You know what she’s like.”
His voice faded as his heartbeat thrummed in his ears. Parrish would care about Sebastian’s safety and Mother having food to eat, but he knew what his brother would really want to hear.
Taking a deep breath, he said, “Father is still in Balavata collecting for Teague. I don’t know when he’ll return. And I don’t know if I’ll still be here when he does. My new job pays me triple what I was making working odd jobs for merchants, and within a year I’ll have enough saved up to buy a cottage far from here.”
It was hard to force the next words past his lips. Hard to keep the rage that bubbled within him locked away when he thought of his father’s role in Parrish’s death, but he had to. It was the only way to save himself from becoming what he feared most. “I know I said I’d punish him for killing you, but . . .”
The scars on his back tingled and ached.
But—one little word that held the balance between who Sebastian had been raised to be and who he was trying to become.
But he didn’t want to be in Kosim Thalas when Father returned.
He didn’t want to stare into Father’s eyes and throw the truth of Parrish’s death into his face.
Not because he was afraid of his father’s fury, though he was.
Not because he knew there was no speaking the truth to him without suffering the consequences, because that lesson had been absorbed with every lash of his father’s whip.
He didn’t want to confront his father because deep inside him, beneath the scars and the shame, a vicious pit of rage bubbled silently, waiting for a crack in his defenses so it could pour out of him and lay waste to anyone in his way.