Page 85 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

“Brother,” he said, dressed stiffly in black again, like last time.

The scrap of blue silk attached to his belt was so worn that whatever scent he’d likely carried it around for had long since faded.

I tilted my head in greeting and didn’t protest when Chloe rose, the box under her arm, and stood at my side.

“I came…” he started, but then trailed off and turned to eye the door before bursting into sudden, anxious motion, pacing across the room some distance from us.

I didn’t know what to think. Kest was three years older than me—old enough to remember my birth and the moment I’d been handed over to the monastery.

He was the only sibling I had who had come before me: the oldest, the one meant to take my father’s position as head of the family someday.

“I wanted you to know that I did miss you,” he said, the words sounding pained coming from his throat, as if he had dug deep and hard to find the courage to speak them out loud.

I sighed, aware that I’d been a ball of angry resentment toward each of my siblings when I was a teen, only allowed family visits from time to time.

It had been a distant cousin who had helped me devise an escape when I’d been fifteen.

I’d hurled that at him once—that I didn’t think they missed me when they left, that they only visited with me when allowed because it gave them prestige.

So it was surprising to hear him say that he did; he was the only one I might believe it from, too.

I shrugged. “Okay, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that, Kest. That doesn’t change anything.

I was still stuck here while you were out there, free to do as you want.

” I flung my arm out to point out the window.

Kest resumed pacing, flinging me a look that read as annoyed, but now I wasn’t so sure.

It was as if something had shifted for him at that last meeting, or maybe earlier, and now he was in serious turmoil.

Did I want to ease his mind? Did I have it in me to feel sympathy for him?

I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t had much sympathy from fellow Sune in my life; if I were honest, I had avoided them as much as I could.

I held no warm feelings for my home planet or any of its people.

Eventually, he stopped pacing to look at me.

“Do they really torture you here?” His gold eyes, much like mine, were filled with such pain that it took me aback.

I didn’t think this agony he was feeling was for me; I doubted my brother cared that much about my fate.

But he cared about this knowledge in some way.

“They do; they’ve been doing it for four days straight now.

You already asked this last time!” Chloe said with a fierceness that made my heart swell.

She stepped around me to face off against Kest, her precious box with the implant still firmly beneath her slender arm.

“From sunrise to sunset, he’s been forced to shift, one form after another, with not a single break.

They make him shift until he’s bleeding from his pores!

I don’t even understand why they make him do that!

But that’s how they treat your damn revered true shifters! ”

She did that pokey thing again with her finger, jabbing it hard into Kest’s chest to his evident surprise.

I rallied myself, readying for a shift in case I needed to protect my Chloe.

It wasn’t necessary. Kest looked devastated hearing her words and let her jab him to her heart’s content, as if he were taking punishment.

His gaze went from Chloe to me, and then he folded like a house of cards tumbling down, collapsing where he stood until he was on his knees at my Chloe’s feet.

“Shit… No, no, no! Even when you were young? Please tell me they didn’t do that to you when you were four!

” He snatched the scrap of silk off his belt and clutched it to his chest. “Not when you were that young, right? It was better as a kid, wasn’t it? ”

When all I could do was helplessly shake my head because it had been like that for most of my life. The stretches were shorter, of course, because I couldn’t last as long, but the training sessions hadn’t changed.

He made a shocked, keening sound that lasted for some time, and I felt a shock of fear go through my body.

This kind of angst could only mean one thing, couldn’t it?

“Oh no, don’t tell me—it’s another one of our siblings?

Did our damn parents put another kid in here?

” I demanded, crossing the room to kneel at his side and clutch his shoulders, giving him a little shake when he didn’t immediately look at me.

“Kitan… brother… I’m so sorry for what you went through,” he said instead of answering me at first, and this time, I believed him.

I felt a rush of emotions course through me that I struggled to analyze—happiness, maybe, that my brother did care; sadness that he now felt guilt; relief that someone was on my side—better late than never.

“It’s not your fault, Kest; you were a kid too, and you can help now,” I told him firmly.

I was still scared to hear the answer to my first question.

From my mother’s words, I knew they had tried for as many kids as possible in the hopes of creating another one like me.

I had no idea what the odds were that they’d succeed, but it certainly explained Kest’s agony over realizing the horrible treatment I’d received, even at a young age.

I shook his shoulders again when he just stared at me with abject misery written all over his features—ones so similar to my own that it was a little unsettling.

Chloe put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

“Who are you scared for now, Kest? The one that scrap of silk belongs to?” she asked gently. Ah, Chloe had picked up on that too.

My older brother shivered before raising his head, first to look at Chloe and then back at me.

“It’s not a sibling. It’s... hard to explain.

But she’s just a little girl, only four, and they discovered her and took her here last week.

I’ve... I’ve tried to find her, but they won’t tell me anything. ”

I flinched. Even if it wasn’t a sibling, no child deserved to be here, and Kest was right to fear what treatment she’d be receiving.

I couldn’t imagine it was anything good.

I also had no idea how to go about possibly rescuing a little girl when I didn’t even know yet how I could get Chloe and myself out of here.

“I’m sorry, brother, they won’t let me near any other true shifters right now.

I’m still being punished for running off in the first place, and they have us on a very tight leash.

” Gesturing at the door, I added, “You must have seen the guard outside when you came in. Chloe and I are either locked in here, or we’re at the training grounds and far too busy.

” I didn’t add that, with Chloe dying without surgery, the Suleantran order still held all the power.

I couldn’t rebel, and if I did—even after Chloe’s surgery was successful—they’d hurt her and not me.

Kest shifted, and I moved to help him to his feet.

He looked like he’d aged ten years in the past five minutes.

It was clear that he cared very deeply about this little girl, and I felt a pang of envy.

I wished I had had someone like that when I was four.

I stifled the feeling immediately, ashamed for even having it.

This girl deserved the support Kest could give her.

I had gotten away; I’d eventually found my own place—twice, even.

“I know, I see that now,” he told me with a sigh, his hands going up to run through his hair, messing up the careful topknot he wore it in.

He didn’t look so polished and uptight now; he looked like a man with a broken heart.

Stepping closer, I tugged him into an embrace, offering support the way I’d learned from the drifter family that had taken me in as a teen when I’d escaped.

They’d been Aderian—empaths, all of them—and they’d known just how to heal my broken pieces.

I could offer my brother a little of that now.

He stiffened at first, but soon held on, and when I slapped his shoulder, he returned the favor. When I stepped back, I tapped my closed fist to my sternum and dipped my head. “That’s a gladiator salute, Kest. I’ve got your back— as much as I can.”

When his eyes went misty, I struggled to keep my own clear.

Damn it, I hadn’t expected this, but it was welcome all the same.

When Chloe stepped back and gave us a moment of privacy, I thought I’d panic, but it was nice.

Now that we’d broken past the old pains and resentment and had found a common goal, it became easier to talk with my brother, and that was a form of healing I hadn’t expected I needed.

We had a surprising amount of time, too.

Kest sat with me for over an hour, talking about how he’d met the little girl—found her in the streets and taken her under his wing—how he’d been appointed head of the family last month so that our father could retire and live the good life, especially since it had been Kest who managed to turn the family shipping business around and regain their good name.

In return, I spoke to Kest of my escape and the kind Aderian drifter family that had taken me in and tamed my feral, broken edges.

I spoke of my years as a pilot, drifting from place to place, and of my love of spaceflight.

Then I spoke briefly about my capture at a seedy bar on the Yengar Space Station and my subsequent induction as gladiator stock in Drameil’s stable.