The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(87)

My face burned, darkness pulling at the edge of my vision, threatening to drag me down completely. I had finally found someone who understood me, but Neven only saw a monster.

“Don’t pretend to understand us,” I said, stepping forward. Neven didn’t back away, or even flinch, as I’d expected.

“I know all I need to know,” Neven said. “I know that he’s somehow convinced you to break Izanami’s rules for him, and no one who cares about you would ask you to take such a risk.”

“I’m breaking her rules for you!” I said, pointing to the frozen Yokai on the ground.

Neven snatched her into his arms and she immediately shuddered into her fox form, climbing onto his shoulder and tucking her face against his neck.

“That’s to save an innocent life!” Neven said. “It’s not for me, it’s because it’s right! That Shinigami is using you and you’re too infatuated to realize it.”

“Stop calling him that like it’s an insult!” I said. “That’s why you don’t like him, isn’t it? Because ‘his eyes are too black’ or some other nonsense.”

Neven rolled his eyes, and my fingers twitched with the urge to strangle him. “You know that’s not it, Ren.”

“And how would I know that?”

“Because you know me!” Neven said, tipping his head back and covering his eyes with a weary hand. “Because you’re a Shinigami and I’ve clearly never had a problem with that.”

“So now I’m a Shinigami, not a Reaper?” I said. “When it helps your argument?”

“Is that not what you want?” Neven said, his voice echoing across the withered fields. “To pretend you’ve always been a Shinigami and forget your other half?”

“I don’t want to be half of anything!” I said, finally crossing the distance between us and shoving Neven backward. The fox whimpered and hopped down, hiding behind Neven’s legs. Hot tears burned my eyes, and I hated him for making me cry. Neven was the one person who was never supposed to hurt me. “I just want to be something, not half of something.” The words sounded weak and human and everything I didn’t want. “Maybe here, they’ll treat me like I’m whole.”

Neven shook his head slowly, his hands falling to his sides.

“You know that they won’t, Ren,” he said, his voice gentle even as his words sliced me open. “No one ever will.”

My hands clenched into fists. I had never before wanted so badly to punch my brother in the face, feel his bones crack under my hand. He was right, and I would be a fool to hope for anything else. But what else could I do but follow this path?

“There is no other road for me,” I said, tears stinging as they tracked down my face and neck. “I can’t go back to your world, Neven.”

“It was our world!” he said, hands tangled in his hair like he wanted to tear it out.

“It chased me out!” I said. “You saw how they treated me there.”

“That doesn’t mean it never happened!” Neven said. “You’re still a Reaper, Ren.”

Death surged up all at once, like a wave of violent sickness that tore through my whole body. I tasted it like tar in my mouth, seeping out between my teeth. The sky plunged into stark black, the crops melting away, the stars extinguished. Before I realized what was happening, I’d thrown Neven to the ground and stomped my foot into his chest.

“Don’t tell me who I am!” I said, the night spiraling around us from the language of Death, twisting into a noxious hurricane of black as my foot pressed down harder into Neven’s sternum. “That’s all that anyone’s ever done! I want to decide for myself, for once!”

Neven grabbed my ankle and tried to throw me off, but I leaned more of my weight onto him and he wheezed, eyes furious as they cast around the darkness for escape. The fox whined and nipped at my ankle, but I ignored her.

“You can’t just decide where you come from,” Neven said through gritted teeth, “or what you are.”

“Then who can?” I said, grinding my heel down and forcing a wounded sound out of him.

All my life, everyone had told me exactly who I wasn’t allowed to be. Ivy and her friends, the Collections guards, the humans on the ships and in the villages, the dead of Yomi, the Yokai, and now Neven, too.

I leaned all my weight onto my foot, fighting off Neven’s grip around my ankle. “Why am I the only one with no say in who I am?”

The night sky throbbed in agreement with my rage, and for one moment, I thought I might actually kill my brother. Damn him and his feral pet for ruining the only thing I’d ever wanted. He tossed out moral platitudes like party favors because he had never known suffering, could never understand that light and dark weren’t so different when your whole world was cast in shadows, that nothing was easy, that there were no happy endings. If he truly loved me, he would try to understand, he would do anything for me the way Hiro would.

At my words, the anger drained away from Neven’s face and his eyes went wide and complexion stony-white, the same look as when he fled from bloodthirsty Yokai or church grims or nightfall, but this time he was looking at me, the most fearsome monster of all.

As swiftly as it had come, the sting of Death fizzled away, washed out by a soul-deep sorrow. My question would never be answered, no matter where I went or who I hurt. I couldn’t punish Neven for a truth he couldn’t control.