She scoffed.
"What?" he snapped, unable to take any more of her attitude when it seemed as if everything he held dear might be caving in around him. If Xander got hurt, he'd never forgive himself. Never.
"Nothing." The word came out far too lightly.
He glowered. "What?"
"Nothing, it’s just—you seem to be worrying an awful lot about people who probably aren’t worrying all that much about you." She said it nonchalantly, as though unaware it would cut him like a knife.
His denial frantically fought to keep the wound from bleeding. "You don't know them."
"I don’t need to. I know you. I see you day after day, your head in the clouds, worried about all the people you left behind. Well, I have one question for you. If they're so worried about you too, where are they? Last I checked, we haven't seen any ravens in the skies, scouring the seas for their lost brother."
"They don't—" He broke off, hating the way her words needled past his defenses, landing with a sting. "It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
"Because it's just not."
"Great argument. You convinced me."
"Brighty!"
"What?"
He glared at her again, unsure how to even begin to explain. It wasn't simple—not by a long shot. Xander was a prince. He couldn't just leave his people to go searching the skies for his bastard brother. Sure, he could have sent a search team, but the ravens wouldn't dare sink beneath the Sea of Mist in an effort to find Rafe. They'd call him dead and be done with it. Not to mention that they'd parted ways in the wake of Rafe's betrayal. Xander thought he'd left of his own accord. His brother probably had no idea he'd been injured.
The situation was complicated.
Yet as he continued to stare into Brighty's opal eyes, a trick of the mind turned them lavender, and suddenly it was his brother sitting before him. All the anger he'd been ignoring came brimming to the surface. Justifiably or not, he was mad at Xander, and he'd been hurt by him. Before the fight with Cassi, back in that royal room that had never felt quite his, Rafe had left—but Xander had let him. And had the roles been reversed, Rafe liked to think he wouldn't have let his brother go so easily. He would have at least demanded answers. He would have tried to find some speck of forgiveness to hold onto. He wouldn't have silently let Xander walk away.
"It's not cowardice to put yourself first, Rafe. You have to know your own worth, and if other people don't see it, then screw them."
Maybe that was the problem.
Xander hadn't fought, but neither had he. Rafe was the one who offered to go, who left without saying a word. He could have stayed. He could have tried to explain himself, to explain how he and Lyana had met before the trials even began, how their magic had united them, how they'd been drawn together as though by the gods' own hands. But he'd spent his whole life believing himself to be worthless, and in truth, he never thought his leaving would matter. Fighting for Xander had always been easy. Fighting for himself was another thing entirely.
"You have more to offer the world than being someone else's punching bag," Brighty continued softly. "Sometimes, you need to live for you."
He would never abandon Xander, or Lyana for that matter. It simply wasn't in his nature. But maybe he could do things differently—maybe while he fought to save their lives, he could learn how to fight for his own too.
Rafe blinked away the heaviness in his heart, retreating from his thoughts to find Brighty watching solemnly. The urge to take her hand surged through him, to simply hold it for comfort against whatever plagued her mind. But that wasn't what they did. They took jabs at each other in an effort to wrangle out the truth. "If you're so good at putting yourself first, how'd you end up on a dragon-hunting ship, risking your life for a cruel king and trying to erase your own name?"
He expected her to roll her eyes and scoff. Instead, she turned toward the sea, a sadness he didn’t understand playing over her features. "We're not talking about me."
"Maybe we should be."
"There are worse places to be than this ship."
"Like where? Tell me. Maybe I can help."
"I don't want help, Rafe. I don't need it. I found my escape, and all I'm saying is, maybe you can too. You have options. Despite your best efforts, the people on this ship actually like you. And I know that all you're thinking about is getting your wings back and storming the castle to save your lost princess, but you should take a moment to ask yourself if that's really what you want. I saw her in the square. She didn't seem trapped to me. She seemed like a queen standing next to her king, and you don't have to live stuck in their shadow. There's a room below deck with your name on it, and Captain can always use another man, especially one with wings. If the people from your past don't want to fight for you, we'd be happy to take you instead."
"Careful, Brighty," he murmured, unable to stop the smile spreading his lips. "You almost sound like you care."
"Don't get used to it."
With that, she gripped one of the loose ropes, leapt off the platform, and glided easily to the deck, ending the conversation with admirable efficiency. But if Rafe's downfall was that he cared too much, so be it. One way or another, he'd uncover her story. He'd help her whether she wanted it or not—that was, after all, the same offer she'd given him. A fact for which he was grateful. Rafe didn’t know what he would have done in this world without her.
"Who wants to test their luck in a game of dice?" she called to the rest of the crew. "Winner gets the pride of not losing, and Rafe will do their laundry for a week."
"What?" he shouted, still on the mast. No one heard him. Or if they did, they ignored him. Jerks. Despite his hurrying down the net, the game was underway by the time he stepped foot on the deck.
Brighty elbowed him in the side when he tried to plead his case. "If you're so beat up about it, get in the game. If you win, I'll do your laundry. How about that?"
"I'm in."
Rafe took his spot in the circle, sizing up the rest of the crew. He'd watched them play a few times but hadn't yet joined them. Dice was one thing, but magic dice was a different game entirely. Two players rolled and the higher number won. In the case of a tie, it turned to a duel—first to retrieve the dice won, the loser was out—and those were a sight to behold.
The first few rolls were uneventful. Coins were exchanged, some murmurs and jibes, but nothing more until Pyro and Spout each hit a four. They grinned at each other, then chaos ensued. Spout pulled water from the sea. Pyro latched onto fire from the lantern she kept hanging near the door. The two forces slammed together, erupting in a blast of steam. The particles must have tickled Spout's nose, because she sneezed, and just like that it was done. Pyro rolled underneath the water, grabbed the dice, and won.
"No one say a word." Spout glowered, staring particularly hard at Brighty, whose cheeks puffed with barely contained laughter. "I'm allergic—"
"We know!" they all said in unison, breaking out in guffaws.
She stomped off and the game circled on. Rafe lost his first toss and won his second. Jolt and Archer dueled. He wrapped a chain around her ankles and yanked them out from underneath her. Before he reached the dice, she sent a bolt of lightning toward his chest. He dove to save his life, and she snatched them for the win. Fairness wasn't exactly a huge part of the game. Brighty and Leech had the next match up. Palm high, she blinded him with her light. Well, blinded them all. Rafe thought it would be an easy victory, but by the time the spots in his vision cleared, Leech held the dice and she was nowhere in sight.