Page 39 of House of Dusk

“Yes,” he effused, his certainty a delight and a terror. “I want to help people. To be the flame that stands against the skotoi. Now more than ever. It’s just...” He sagged slightly.

“It’s dangerous,” Sephre finished.

“No. I mean, yes, it is, and I’m not brave or anything. I still have nightmares about Kessely. But even so, I helped stop it. I did something good. I want to keep doing that. Even if it’s dangerous.”

“So, what, then?”

His cheek dented, caught between his teeth.

“I just keep thinking about everything I’ve done wrong in my life.

How many mistakes I’ve made. I know you said we all make them, that we learn from them.

But how do you know when you’ve learned enough ?

I don’t know if I’m—if I’m good enough. For the flame.

What it...what if it doesn’t want me? ”

She laughed. A short, sharp bark, wild with disbelief. This pup. This lovely boy, thinking that anything he had done in his short, innocent life could possibly be so terrible.

“I mean...I’m not like you,” he said. “I’m not a hero. I keep hearing my mother’s voice, telling me—”

“Lies,” Sephre snapped, abruptly furious. At his mother. At herself. At a world where someone like Timeus thought that he wasn’t good enough. That she, Sephre, murderer and despoiler, was a hero.

“Sit,” she said, roughly.

Wordless, big-eyed, he slid onto the seat across from her.

The nearly empty wine jug sat reproachfully between them.

Sephre fought the urge to sweep it away.

Instead, she poured the dregs into two cups, then pushed one across the table.

“Drink. It’s medicinal,” she added, before he could protest. She lifted her cup. “To Zander.”

It was the first time she’d said his name in ten years. It should have shattered her. Instead, here she was, a mouthful of wine sloshing down her throat.

“Who was he?” asked Timeus.

“A soldier. We served together, during the siege. He’s dead now.”

She wanted to say more, but words couldn’t hold a person, a life.

It was like trying to describe a beach with a few grains of sand.

Zander was the one who invented filthy songs to cheer the rest of them during long nights on watch.

The one who saved a bit of every meal to feed his favorite hungry camp-dog.

The one who had gifted her a bottle of Scarthian milk-wine after she was promoted, then drank most of it himself to “save her from behaving in an un-captain-ly manner.” The one who started a brawl with the entire fifth wing after one of them called her a joyless harpy.

Everyone knows you’re a joy ful harpy, he said, lips split, cheeks battered, eyes already masked with bruises.

Sephre coughed, as if it might make the words come easier. It didn’t. “Our unit—my unit—was given a mission. They said it would end the siege in a day.”

She kept her gaze fixed on the table, but she heard Timeus draw in a breath. She wondered how much he knew. Which stories he’d heard. The ones that left the nature of the Helissoni victory conveniently vague, or the ones that told the truth.

“It was Lacheron’s plan,” she said. “All we needed was to get a small team over the city wall. There was a spot we’d found, along the western ridge. Near the city’s water supply. So. That was us.”

“The seventh wing?”

“What was left of it.” She grimaced. “There were six of us by then. We started the war as fifty.”

She braced herself for the boy to say he was sorry, but he held his tongue. She went on. “It was a simple enough mission. Carry the flasks of poison to the cisterns and dump them in.”

Another sharp breath. She paused, waiting.

“Poison?” He made a noise, something between a huff and a sigh.

“You were expecting a glorious charge?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. “The valiant Helissoni battering down the gates and marching into Bassara to rescue the Faithful Maiden?” She shook her head. “It wasn’t anything like that. What we did was horrible. Unforgivable.”

“I...I didn’t know.” He swallowed. “But it was Lacheron who ordered it.”

“That’s no excuse.” Sephre laced her fingers together, staring at her pale knuckles.

“I just wanted the war to be over. I told myself there would only be a few deaths. Then they’d see the danger, and surrender.

I didn’t let myself imagine the worst. That.

..that so many would...” She gave a sharp shake of her head.

“The point is, don’t measure yourself against me.

I’m not a hero. I’m not even sure I belong here.

I didn’t come to Stara Bron to fight skotoi and save the world.

I was running away. I just wanted to—” Her throat clamped.

Weariness stained her gray and listless.

After a moment, Timeus spoke. “I broke my sister’s arm.

” He frowned into his cup. “We were six. I was angry she wouldn’t let me have my turn with the toy horse.

I shoved her, and...I guess she just fell wrong.

I heard the snap. I was crying before she was.

I hadn’t meant it to happen.” He hitched his shoulders, as if the story was an old, itchy blanket, hard to settle.

“Mother slapped me, and then she locked me in the cellar. She said I’d best learn to behave, or the skotoi would find me and eat my soul.

It was the worst night of my life. It was pitch black.

And I kept hearing them. The demons.” He huffed wryly.

“Probably just mice, but they were skotoi to me. I was terrified. My bones practically rattled out of my skin. And that wasn’t even the worst part. ”

Sephre waited, watching the old fears twist the boy’s face like storm clouds.

“I could hear Rhea, upstairs, weeping. I think she was trying to be quiet—she’s always been the brave one—but I guess it hurt so much she couldn’t help it.

And she was all alone. Mother must not have heard.

Maybe she’d had too much wine.” He carefully slid his own cup away, lacing his long fingers together and staring into them instead.

“I finally managed to shake the latch loose. I went to Rhea, and I told her I was sorry again, and I stayed with her all that night and told her stories so she wouldn’t think so much about the pain. ”

He drew in a long breath. His bony shoulders heaved, as if casting something off. “It wasn’t willowbark tonic, just a bunch of silly jokes, really. But still. I think it was...good.” He unlaced his fingers and met her eyes. “I’m going to do it. I’m going to sit the red vigil.”

Sephre doubted anyone had ever called Timeus handsome, with his gangly limbs and his wine-jug ears and overlong, over-lean face. But in that moment he was utterly beautiful and she was so, so proud of him.

“You’re going to make an excellent ashdancer,” she told him, croaking past the lump in her throat.

He smiled, swift and sweet. “Thank you, sister.”

“You should go,” she told him, before he could further unravel her. She nodded to the darkening sky. “You’re supposed to start the vigil at dusk.”

So he went, leaving her alone in the shadowed workshop with only the moths for company. She watched them flutter around the single small oil lamp. Drawn to the light, heedless of how it might singe their soft wings.

She waved the blundering insects away, then snuffed the flame.

It was time to stop wallowing. Time to act, while she still had the chance.