A Vow So Bold and Deadly (Cursebreakers, #3)(70)

“My brother and I got the lash when we were young,” he says. “Bryon was caught with a general’s daughter when he was supposed to be on duty, and he thought he wouldn’t get punished because we were … kallah. Two of the same?”

“Twins?” I guess.

“Twins! Bryon thought, surely they couldn’t prove which of us it was. He was wrong.” He offers me half a smile, and something about it is a little sad, a little wistful. “Nothing so bad as”—he flicks a glance at my shoulder—“that. But I never forgot.”

This is the first time I’ve heard him mention a brother. It should make me think of any of the siblings that Lilith slaughtered when I was a guardsman, but it doesn’t. It makes me think of Rhen. “They punished you both,” I say.

“They did.”

“Where is your brother now?”

Solt fetches two bowls from a shelf near the corner, then begins to ladle meleata into them. His answer is long in coming. “He fell in battle.” He pauses. “When we fought the monster.”

“In Emberfall.”

“Yes.” His back is still to me.

I knew this would be an obstacle for me with the soldiers from Syhl Shallow. I just didn’t expect it to hit me in the face so acutely. I realign all of my interactions with Solt over the past few months, putting his anger—his hatred of me—into perspective.

Solt turns from the fire with the bowls and sets both on the narrow table in the center of the room, then pours two cups of something dark and thick from a kettle. He gestures for me to sit, and I do, but once he’s sitting in front of me, he looks at the bowl, at his spoon, at his mug. At anything but me. I wonder if he regrets telling me this.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

He shrugs a bit, then dips the spoon into the rice. “Why would you?”

That’s probably more gracious than I deserve. I touch my spoon to the food, then hesitate. The smell is warm and inviting, almost like something I’ve forgotten from childhood. It’s not something I expected to associate with this man.

He misreads my hesitation. “You fear poison?” His eyes are challenging again. He sounds amused.

“No,” I say, and I take a bite. I might not know him well, but if Solt wanted to kill me, he’d do it with his bare hands.

We eat in silence for a while, and I can’t tell if there’s any tension to it. This reminds me of my days as a guardsman, when you could be sitting across from anyone, even someone you hated, but at the end of the day, you were part of the same team, with the same motivations—and the same enemies. I’ve spent weeks trying to think of how to get the soldiers to respect me, to follow me, but maybe I’ve been going about it the wrong way.

Maybe I should have been thinking of ways to join them.

“Are you hoping to avenge your brother?” I ask quietly.

He makes a dismissive noise. “The monster is gone. I cannot kill it.”

“Emberfall isn’t gone.” I pause. “I’m not gone.”

He shrugs a little, then scrapes his bowl with his spoon, fighting for every last bite of rice.

When he doesn’t answer, I add, “You wanted to fight me. When I shoved you away from Tycho.” I pause. “You didn’t.”

He laughs a little, but not like it’s really funny. “I saw how fast you pulled those blades.” He flexes his hand again, and now I can see his knuckles are swollen. “I felt you take a punch.”

I take a drink from the mug he poured. It’s very thick and sweet, and I can’t tell if I like it. I set the mug aside and hold out a hand. “I can fix your fingers.”

He loses any hint of a smile.

I affect his manner and accent from when he asked about poison. “You fear magic?”

He smiles as if he’s genuinely amused. He extends a hand, holding my gaze as I close my fingers over his. “Fine, Your Highness. Show me such wonders that you won the heart of our queen—” He inhales sharply and swears in Syssalah, jerking his newly healed hand away from mine. He looks from me to his fingers and then back again. The swelling is gone.

I pick up the bowl and take another spoonful of rice. “Such wonders,” I say flatly.

He curls and uncurls his fist, and he glances at me with a new look in his eye. Less belligerence. Greater regard.

“It’s all right,” I say. “You can keep hating me.”

“You ask why I did not fight you,” he says.

I shrug. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

“I couldn’t lecture the boy about respect and duty,” he says, “and then attack you.” He pauses. “I can’t defy your orders on the field. Five hundred soldiers report to me.”

I study him.

“They are good women and men,” he adds. “You are sending us to war. If I risk my position, who will they trust to lead them into battle?”

Not me. He doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t trust me either.

Something about that is … almost noble. I can respect wanting to look out for his soldiers. I can respect what he’s lost. I can respect his wary regard.

“Your soldiers know you hate me,” I say.

“Well.” He grunts. “Many of them hate me.”