Chelsea Fine - Avow

Tristan’s eyes shot across the room and ran through Gabriel like a blade. “You do not know love as I know love.”

Gabriel sighed and leaned back in the throne. “Are we going to be dramatic now? Maybe I shall call for some wine of my own and we can both wallow and aimlessly fight through our miserable drunkenness.”

Tristan turned a hazy smile to him. “Ah, yes. You are the earl now. I forget this sometimes. Earl Archer .” Though he tried to pronounce the title carefully, it slurred on his lips.

Tristan’s eyes went back to the wall and he reached above his head to lift a sword from its hook. He took another pull of wine before tossing the jug to the floor, a trickle of red liquid dripping from its spout.

“I enjoy weapons.” Tristan turned the sword over in his loose hands. “They make me feel powerful. Capable.”

Curse the stars, was he rambling now?

“Yes, well, that particular weapon is an heirloom, so if you would be so kind as to replace it—“

“Did you touch her?” Tristan’s lax body language stiffened, but his eyes stayed on the blade.

“What?” Gabriel tried to sound exasperated, but his stomach tightened ever so slightly. This was not a conversation he wanted to have with a drunk Tristan—especially when that drunk Tristan was holding a sharp object.

“Scarlet.” He ran a lazy finger down the edge of the sword. “Did you touch her?”

Gabriel paused for a long moment. “Does it matter?”

Tristan inhaled long and slow through his nostrils as he looked up at the ceiling. “I haven’t decided.”

Rubbing the side of his face, Gabriel said, “You are drunk. Now is not the time…”

“Did she touch you?”

Oh, for the love.

“Tristan, we were engaged. And might I remind you, it was your idea for me to marry her.”

“Yes.” Tristan shifted the sword to his other hand. “I believe I asked you to care for her. To protect her.”

Gabriel moved uncomfortably in his seat.

“Yet somehow,” Tristan continued, looking at the hilt of the blade as he squeezed the handle, “Scarlet ended up dead.”

Tension filled the room.

Tristan’s voice was deceptively soft as he looked at Gabriel. “You let your whore kill the woman I loved.”

“I did not let Raven do anything. Scarlet was my wife—”

Just like that, Tristan was upon him, the sword pointed right at Gabriel’s throat and held by the very steady hand of a very broken man.

Tristan’s voice was low and hard, his slur completely gone. “She was not your wife.” His eyes darkened. “She was not yours at all.”

Gabriel did not breathe for fear the movement would bring his throat against the blade. He knew Tristan would never harm him, but he also knew what it felt like to lose a loved one.

Just months ago, when word had come that Tristan had died in battle, Gabriel had been turned inside out and made hollow and fierce with the notion that he would never again see his brother. To lose his best friend—to lose a piece of his blood and soul—had been unfathomable. Tristan’s “death” had nearly destroyed Gabriel.

And it seemed Scarlet’s death was wreaking the same havoc upon Tristan; breaking him down, emptying all he was, driving him to desperation.

It was not Tristan who stood with a blade to Gabriel’s throat, but rather his broken heart. Gabriel understood this, even if Tristan did not.

Calmly, slowly, Gabriel answered, “I did not touch her.”

It was the truth and, although he knew it would not ease the ache in his brother’s chest, Gabriel knew it would at least remove the sword from his neck.

Tristan paused. Then whipped away from Gabriel, dropping the sword to the ground as he started for the throne room doors.

Gabriel ran a hand across his face. Whatever would he do with his wrecked, unstable brother with new, green eyes and a body that could magically heal itself—

“Wait.” Gabriel called after Tristan, a memory hitting him. “Do you remember when we were young and we saw that boy by the caves nearly cut his hand off?” Gabriel leaned forward in his seat. “It was a bloody, mangled mess and we watched him hold his hand in place while it healed. Do you remember?”

Tristan turned around and squinted. “Vaguely.”

“What if your body’s ability to heal itself is somehow linked to whatever that boy was able to do?”

“I do not care about my body, healing or otherwise.”

“Perhaps not now, but someday you may.” Feeling reenergized, Gabriel stood from the throne and made his way to the doors. “Sober up, brother. Tomorrow, we are going for a ride.”

Damn the happy sun.

Tristan’s head ached for wine as he rode alongside Gabriel to wherever the hell they were headed as the rising sun bit into his eyes.

A new day. A new nothing.

“Is it not nice to leave the castle?” Gabriel took a deep breath. “You lived as a dead soul this week, brother. Wallowing in darkness, consumed with sadness. I think this outing will be good for you.”

“I was not dead,” Tristan said, though he wished he were.

As a memory of Scarlet snaked inside his chest, he clamped down on the tight emotion it brought. He would not think of her.

Alive or dead. In his arms or gone forever.

He would not think of her at all.

Gabriel scoffed. “No, you were just in a drunken haze that lasted five days and cost me eight servants and two court healers. Who knew you were such an awful drunk?”

Tristan glowered at his twin. Awful or not, being drunk kept the memories away and, therefore, kept him sane.

“Here we are,” Gabriel said as they came upon a large house. He quickly dismounted his horse.

Tristan followed suit, but not as quickly, his sluggish body unaccustomed to being upright with the sun. “Where are we?”

“The Fletcher home.”

“The house of witches?” Adrenaline shot through Tristan’s body. “Is this not where Raven lives?”

“It was. But she is no longer here.” Darkness clouded Gabriel’s eyes. “If she were, she would already be in shackles.”

“If that horrendous woman is not here, then why are we?”

“Because her cousin, Nathaniel, is the boy from the caves. And he may have answers for us.” Gabriel strode to the front door and knocked.

Tristan followed after him and watched as a small, square panel in the center of the door slid to the side, revealing a pair of nervous eyes.

“Earl Archer,” said the eyes, blinking rapidly.

“Are you Nathaniel Fletcher?”

“I am.” The eyes widened. “But I do not know where my cousin is. Please do not kill me.”

“I am not here for Raven,” Gabriel said.

Nathaniel’s eyes shifted to the side. “Are you here about the pheasants? Because that was an accident.”

“What pheasants?”

“Nothing.” Nathanial seemed relieved. “One moment.”

The small panel slid back into place and the door opened to reveal an odd-looking fellow with bushy brown hair that stuck out on one side and a pair of eyeglasses caught in the mess. Despite the warm weather outside—and the fact that he was, indeed, inside—Nathaniel Fletcher wore a thick, black cloak that hung too long for him and dragged across the dirty floorboards.