I closed my eyes against the furious, helpless tears that threatened and inhaled deeply through my nose. Benedict would be fine. He would. He knew how to take care of himself, and he had a battle cruiser full of von Hasenberg soldiers who were fanatically loyal to him. As much as Father wanted to punish me, he wouldn’t risk Benedict’s ship unnecessarily. He would send a battle fleet with him.
It was a pretty lie, but the front lines were lethal, and a House son was a very tempting target, battle fleet or no. Nothing broke morale faster than killing off a leader. I’d already missed so many years thanks to Gregory, and now Benedict might be lost to me forever.
A sob lodged in my throat at the thought of never seeing my twin again.
Benedict and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but we always had each other’s backs. Father had tried to break our twin bond when we were young. He had failed, in part thanks to Ferdinand’s subtle interference.
And now I missed both of my brothers. Grief cut like a knife, slicing through my armor to pierce my heart. I tried to hold myself together, but the heartbreak was too big, the anguish too strong.
My brother, my twin, could die and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it except stand here and try not to bawl like a child.
“Are you okay?” Ian asked again.
“No,” I said because I’d promised him honesty. And because he’d known the news would upset me and he’d come to check on me. Warmth sparked, a tiny flame in a sea of sorrow.
“Can I do anything?”
I barked out a bitter, watery laugh. “Do you know how to stop a war between High Houses?”
“No,” he said after a short pause.
“Then there’s nothing you can do.” I sighed. I felt like I’d aged five years in the last five minutes. “I knew one of us was going to have to go, and Benedict makes the most sense tactically, now that Father banished Ada. I’m just glad it’s not Catarina, though she’s probably next on the list.”
We were all on the list when it came down to it. Ferdinand was the safest, as the heir, and while he was missing, Hannah would be relatively safe, despite her resolve not to inherit the role. But Father would fling the rest of us at the front until we won or no one was left to send.
I sent Benedict a quick reply, letting him know that I expected him to stay in one piece. There was so much more that I wanted to say, so many things we needed to talk about, but I sent him only the most important: I love you, baby brother.
The fragile grip I had on my emotions wavered. My breath hitched. I was approximately thirty seconds from a meltdown. “Thank you for letting me know,” I said to Ian. I backed into the room and gripped the door.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?”
I desperately wanted to ask him to come in, to find comfort in touch, but our relationship wasn’t like that and I still had to work with him in the morning. It would cause more problems than it would solve, so I shook my head and gently closed the door.
The tears came and a sob worked its way past my control. I muffled it with my hand and retreated to the bed. I curled up facing away from the door and buried my head in a pillow. Only then did I let the sorrow spill out.
The door opened.
I held my breath and pretended I was invisible.
Footsteps approached. If he sniped at me right now, I would kill him dead. Sorrow could flash into fury at the slightest provocation and I would welcome the fight.
“I know you don’t like me,” Ian said quietly, “but I’m the only one available and I don’t think you should be alone. Tell me to go and I will.”
I didn’t trust my voice, and now that he was here, I didn’t want him to leave. I said nothing.
Ian moved quietly as he sat on the floor and leaned back against the bed. The room was pitch-dark, so I could track him only via sound. Once he stopped moving, he disappeared from my mental map. Having my back to a threat made me twitchy, so I rolled over onto my right side, facing him. I trusted the darkness to hide my tears.
I had learned long ago how to cry silently, but it had been over a year since I’d needed to and I was out of practice. I sucked in a quiet breath through my mouth and let the tears stream down my face into the pillow.
“When I was a boy, I lived in a group home,” Ian murmured. His voice was unexpectedly close, but facing away from the bed.
“I was a scrawny kid,” he continued. “Smaller than the other boys my age and underfed. I was picked on by the bigger, meaner boys, so I learned to fight well enough that they stopped bothering me.”
Cocooned in darkness, with Ian telling me a story from his childhood, I could almost believe this was a dream. That Benedict wasn’t really being sent to the front lines and that Ferdinand wasn’t really missing.
“One day, I came across three older boys who had cornered a younger girl. I would’ve left them to it,” he said, shame coloring his voice, “but she looked at me with these huge brown eyes full of terror and I just couldn’t walk away. I could fight, but I was badly outnumbered and outmuscled. The three of them kicked my ass. I was laid up in bed for two weeks. The girl escaped.
“Every day for those two weeks, she would sneak into medical and sleep curled up next to me. I think it made both of us feel better.”
“What happened to her?” I whispered.
“I don’t know. She disappeared after I was released from medical. I looked for her, but she had vanished.”
I reached out, intending to touch his shoulder, but I found the back of his head first, resting against the bed. The smooth strands of his hair slid through my fingers like water, a temptation I didn’t need. I shifted until my fingers just brushed his shoulder. His skin was warm and solid and real.
“When I was eight, Father decided it was time I learned to fight compromised,” I said. My voice was thick with tears and I stopped to clear my throat. “My self-defense tutor recommended against it, but Father was not swayed. Ferdinand and Hannah had learned at eight and so would I. He had the doctors inject me with a weaponized virus designed to defeat the nanobots in my blood. It worked far better than anyone expected. I could barely move.”
I’d never been sick before and it had been terrifying. I swallowed the remembered horror and continued, “Benedict was injected at the same time, but he responded normally with a relatively mild illness. He sailed through his trials while I struggled to barely finish. He helped me where he could, but tests were individual except for the final one.
“For the final test, we had to fight each other. Benedict threw the match, despite me begging him not to. Father punished failure, but he punished insubordination more. Benedict disappeared for a month. When he came back, he was colder, harder. But whatever happened had honed his resolve and he threw every match after that, until Father finally stopped pitting us against each other.”
“Then Benedict won in the end,” Ian said.
“He did, but he paid a dear price. He never spoke of what happened whenever he was taken away, but he always came back colder and sharper.” And having had my own share of “reeducation” time, I could well imagine what he’d gone through.
“Benedict would tell you that the result was worth the price.”
“He would and he has.” I sighed. “Ferdinand did the same thing, as did Hannah. Then we all did it for Ada and Catarina. The result is worth the price, but that doesn’t remove the guilt. Benedict gave up little pieces of himself to save me.”