Page 7 of Moonstriker (The Summertide Chronicles #4)

Chapter 7

Kit

Lunch drifted into socialization in the sitting room, which...well, it wasn’t for me.

Father wanted to snuggle with his boyfriend, which I couldn’t blame him for—it was a little on the chilly side, and I was far too used to mild Dawnchaser weather to be comfortable at anything with a temperature lower than a warm spring afternoon. But everyone was talking about plans for after the meeting at the chalet was over, and that?—

Well, I’d been living a long time with The Plan. Trying to move all the pieces into position. After The Plan succeeded hadn’t been a consideration in that. I had no idea what I would do after the meeting was done.

I knew it , Nikka said, sighing piteously. Vex warned me, but I ignored him, and he was right .

Should I even ask what he was right about?

I took a perfectly good monkey and gave him anxiety by telling him stone business .

Of course. That sounded very like my brother’s stone. Just as I’d always seen Nikka as being like Frost, Vex had always been a little more like me than I cared to admit aloud, and it sounded exactly like something I would say.

I’m fine, Neek. I just...we’ve been working on this a long time, and I didn’t have time or interest in planning what came after. Not when I didn’t even know if we’d succeed. This was more important than that.

And now you have nothing. Her tone was so dramatic that if I hadn’t known her so well, I’d have thought she was fucking with me, trying to get a reaction.

I still don’t know we’re going to succeed, you know, I pointed out. It was terrible and manipulative, trying to turn her mind back to worrying about The Plan, but seriously, there was nothing in the world that made me more uncomfortable than feelings. I deeply did not want to discuss what I was going to do with my life once The Plan was over.

It was even worse than chatting with Delta about my future plans, because I knew Nikka wouldn’t approve of me being a duelist anymore. It had been a means to an end, a way to get myself into Dawnchaser court. If I kept doing it all the time, why, I might get myself killed.

Like The Plan couldn’t have done that on its own.

She gave a deep sigh, and I worried we were going to have to have that conversation right then, but like a gift from the gods of old, Ember arrived at that moment, dropping herself with force into the seat next to me.

“Hey,” she said, as unsubtly as a freight train barreling down the tracks I was sleeping atop.

I lifted a brow at her.

“Don’t look at me like that. I haven’t even said anything. You don’t know?—”

“What do you want, Ember?”

“Maybe I just want to talk to my big brother who abandoned us all to Delta’s tender mercies when we were kids.” She stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout that I was sure got her her way with most people.

I rolled my eyes. “You were seventeen when I left. The only way you were a kid was in the technical sense, being very slightly underage. And I don’t feel guilty for leaving. We both know I did what I needed to.” She scowled and looked away, eyes flicking back and forth as though she was desperately searching for something. “You know if you want something from me, you can just ask.”

She glanced back up at me, eyes still searching. “Can I?”

I leaned in and pressed my shoulder to hers. “You’re still my little sister. Even if I’m a shitty older brother.”

Weirdly enough, that seemed to confuse her. “But you weren’t, Kit. You were the best older brother. That was why we were all shattered when you left. You were always there. Always helped and fixed and protected. Honestly, I...I think leaving was the first thing you ever did for you.”

The whole world seemed to go silent at that, even the constant buzz of Nikka in my head.

“I thought you knew we felt that way.”

I swallowed hard, bracing myself, and shook my head. “I didn’t—I’m sorry if my leaving?—”

“No, don’t apologize. I just...I guess I thought you were tired of living your life for us and wanted something for you. I couldn’t really blame you.” She leaned her shoulder into mine, but then just seemed to entirely deflate against my side. “I missed you.”

“Missed you too.”

We sat in silence like that for a moment, and while I saw Frost glance over, everyone else left us alone. Like they realized it was an important moment for us, whether they’d heard the conversation or not.

When Ember finally dragged in a slow, deep breath, I decided to break it.

“You did come over because you wanted something, didn’t you?”

She gave a giggle, followed by a wet sniffle as she pulled herself up and turned to me. “I need you to have dinner with me tonight.”

Affecting a flirtatious look, I pursed my lips at her. “Now Ember, I know we’re technically not related by blood, but?—”

“Ew, gross, don’t be a jerk,” she demanded, elbowing me in the side. “I mean”—she glanced around and lowered her voice—“Lady Duskbringer invited me to have dinner with her, and she’s”—she waggled her eyebrows and made an hourglass figure with her hands—“you know. Gorgeous.”

“Also intelligent and talented and possessing of perhaps the strongest will I’ve ever seen in my life,” I added, pressing a hand to my chest as though offended by Ember’s focus on physicality.

Ember didn’t seem to notice, just sighed. “Is she? She seemed kind of awesome, but I’ve never met her before today.”

“She used to be one of the most skilled duelists in the Summerlands,” I added, since it was one of the things I actually knew about her. Sure, I’d spent most of a week in Gloombringer Castle, but I hadn’t become besties with her. Most of what I knew was from Huxley Dawnchaser’s self-involved rambling over the years I’d worked for him. The man had actually told me to steer clear of her, just in case she was still as good a duelist as she’d been in her youth.

I’d mostly been offended he’d thought so little of me.

“She’s also a recovering alcoholic, if I understand correctly,” I added. I didn’t want to be a tattletale, but it seemed like a good thing for Ember to know if she was going to pursue the lady. It might save on misunderstandings, if Ember just didn’t drink around her to begin with.

Ember seemed to take that onboard with no issues, nodding. “That’s good to know. I’ll make sure the staff doesn’t include wine with dinner. But...but that’s the thing. She asked me to have dinner with her out on the terrace, and I said yes, but—but she’s bringing her nephew. And that’s, like, super awkward, right?”

I took a deep breath and worked hard not to groan. “You want me to come to dinner with you and Titania Duskbringer, to distract Aubrey?”

She bit her lip and looked so hopeful that frankly, if she’d been asking me to shoot myself, I’d have been hard-pressed to say no. “If that’s okay?”

I sighed, nodding. “Of course, Ember. Anything to help the course of true love.”

“You don’t think I’m trying to shoot outside my league? She’s the freaking Gloom—um, Duskbringer. That’s weird. Been saying Gloombringer all my life. It’s...It’s nicer, though.”

“It is,” I agreed, and then turned back to the subject at hand. “And there isn’t a single woman in the world out of your league, little sister. You’re a fucking catch, and she’d be lucky to snap you up. So of course I will come along and play wingman. Professional nephew distracter, that’s me.”

She jumped out of her chair, grinning, and twirled around. “I’m gonna go figure out what to wear. And talk to the staff to make sure there’s no wine. I’ll meet you on the terrace at five?”

“At five,” I said, nodding and trying to stifle my amusement. She was excited, and I didn’t want to do anything to dampen it. Ember deserved something good in her life.

She left, and things quieted again, everyone watching some television show.

I didn’t even try; I’d never managed to feign interest in television, and I wasn’t going to start now.

Instead, I stood, turning to head back up the stairs toward my own room for a little quiet time.

Halfway up, Nikka gave a tiny sound, and it was . . . odd.

Something wrong, Neek? I asked, almost by rote.

There was a moment of silence before she answered. She—Ember, that is, she said leaving home was the first thing you’d ever done for yourself.

Oh. Shit. Nikka ? —

But you didn’t leave home for yourself. You did it for me. Because of The Plan. You did it for everyone in the whole Summerlands.

Sometimes, it was really fucking inconvenient that Nikka knew me so well, and worse, that she could practically see inside my head. With anyone else, I could bluster and claim complete selfish douchebaggery, and they’d sigh and dismiss me as an asshole. It made everything easier when people did that. They tended to stop noticing me at all when they thought I was a hopeless asshole.

Kit , Nikka said, her voice smaller than I’d ever heard it before. Have you ever done anything for yourself?

And damn it all, I didn’t have an answer for that.

Not because I was some selfless perfect creature who only cared about others. But because I just didn’t fucking know. Who had time to worry about themselves when the whole world was in danger?

Tomorrow , I told her. I can worry about that tomorrow.