Page 27 of The Gargoyle and the Maiden (Nightfall Guardians #1)

Brandt

T he tonic the head mason spooned into his mouth tasted suspiciously sweet, more like a dessert than a medicine.

What poison did its delicate flavor hide?

Brandt held the golden liquid in his mouth, debating whether to spit it out, until Aalis’s glare and a guard’s brandished spear convinced him to swallow.

“What is that?”

“Medicine, obviously.” She measured another spoonful with mechanical precision and poked it between his lips before he could protest.

He swallowed the second spoonful, and warmth spread through his chest. “What’s it for?”

“Your injuries.” Without another word, she left the roost.

Her abrupt demeanor was to be expected after how he’d behaved, he supposed. He was trying to be gentler with the masons since he’d injured the young healer’s wrist, but suppressing his frustrated anger took all his strength. Every interaction was a trial, and often he was found guilty.

But he did his best to do as they asked, taking doses of whatever they poured into his mouth, like he was a sickly hatchling.

He submitted to every treatment they proposed, let them chip into his hide and repair the cracks with limestone paste and molten copper.

He kept his hands and thoughts to himself as much as he could.

Eight days later, he woke knowing his own name.

Not just his name sound, the one everyone called him so he couldn’t miss it, but what it meant.

Brandt, son of Ghantal. Cliffborn commander in the Sixth Watch.

The knowledge settled into place like a keystone, and suddenly other memories built around it.

Training new recruits in the Tower’s hollow core.

The young, eager faces when he demonstrated banking turns and paired them up to spar.

No. Not that. The sparring led to battles, to screaming, to watching them fall out of the sky like stones. He slammed a new wall against the memory with a grunt.

Still, once the wall was up and the sense of horror faded, he had to acknowledge that he was improving. This was the first wall he’d had to erect in several days, when before he’d been walling off nearly every interaction to be able to cope.

He mentioned it when Aalis visited with two of her apprentices to dispense his tonic.

“That seems markedly quick. I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” she advised, recorking the bottle. “Recovery can ebb and wane. It’s a bit like navigation. Sometimes the wind blows you in the right direction, but sometimes it sends you far off course.”

“I’m on course,” he argued, familiar anger rising.

“Time will tell.” She prodded one of the healing wounds on his shoulder, and he had to grit his teeth so he wouldn’t flinch. But he didn’t grab her wrist and twist until bones ground together. Progress.

“I remember my mother now.”

The junior masons exchanged glances. One scratched notes on a slate.

“What else do you remember?” Aalis asked, frowning slightly.

“My work as a commander. I was promoted after...” He frowned, chasing the memory. Ah, there it was. “After Kardok retired and left the opening. Or died? No, retired. His mate was the one who died.”

More scratching. More exchange of looks. More fizzing, sizzling anger under his skin.

“You probably overheard people talking,” Aalis said bluntly. “Mind walls as extensive as yours don’t simply crumble after a few doses of herbal tonic.”

He pulled in a deep breath to dilute his fury, feeling the warm sweetness of the medicine in his chest. It calmed him down enough to answer her civilly. “Maybe they aren’t as extensive as you thought.”

“Or maybe you’re creating false memories with new information.” She leaned close as though she were sharing a confidence. “I’m not accusing you of faking improvement to escape our care. But consider that wishful thinking might be driving your swift ‘recovery.’”

Rage flared, but only momentarily. The medicine gentled that, too, turning what would have been violence into mere irritation. “Test me however you want.”

“We will.” With one wing, she gestured behind her to the door. “Starting with your mother. She knows you best.”

They didn’t have to wait long. Ghantal arrived within the hour, and Brandt knew her before she even landed.

The particular rhythm of her wingbeats, slightly favoring the left because she had a painful second joint on the right.

The way she held her tail rigid, a sign she was nervous.

The scent of the expensive oil she used on her claws.

“Mother.”

Her composure shattered. She crashed into him, wings wrapping around them both, and he remembered being small, scared of thunder, hidden in the safety of her embrace.

“Never fear a storm,” she’d said. “It only means great things are coming. You were born during one such as this.”

More memories swamped his senses: learning to sharpen his claws on her whetting stones. His first flight ending in a spectacular crash through her laundry line. Her proud tears when he’d been promoted to commander.

“My son.” She pulled back, touching his face with shaking hands. “You know me.”

The shame of forgetting her burned through him. He hung his head so her hands were supporting it. “How could I forget my own mother?” he said into her palms. He could hear the uncomfortable shifting of the guards and masons in the doorway behind him.

“The war took many things.” Her thumb traced a new scar on his jaw, reminding him of what those scars meant. One for each fallen brother.

“How many others survived?” No one answered. All he could hear was the muttering of the moths around the lantern as they speculated on the number. “Must I count my scars and do the grim mathematics? How many!? ”

“Stay calm,” Ghantal murmured. “Don’t give them any cause to cage you. You’re unlocking memories now. That’s the important thing, healing enough to come home. We can’t undo what has been done, but let’s not count you among the casualties.”

He nodded, focusing on the warmth in his chest, the breath in his lungs. He caught her examining his face with that particular focus that meant she was calculating something. “What?”

“Be frank with me, are you well enough to leave the masons’ hall?”

“I think so.” He glanced at the watching masons, whose expressions ranged from wary to baleful. “I want out of here.”

“That’s not the question.”

“I’m not as prone to fits of violence. I can remember things.” He spread his wings, hiding nothing as he spoke to the gargoyles assembled to gawk at him. “Your treatment is working, stone-butchers. What more do you want?”

Ghantal lifted her chin in the posture she used when she negotiated in the cliff markets. He remembered watching her haggle when he was a child, arguing over the price of leather or meat. She never paid full price for anything.

She addressed the head mason. “Clearly, he’s improved enough to be discharged. Healing can proceed just as well in his own nest, don’t you think?”

Aalis’s mouth flattened. “He still has many mind walls.”

“They’re coming down,” Brandt cut in. “You’ve seen it yourself.”

“You don’t want to lose momentum. Leaving prematurely, before your treatment concludes…”

Ghantal’s voice carried the authority of decades of social climbing. “He’ll return for treatments. Won’t you, Brandt?”

“Every night.” He’d agree to anything to escape the smells and sounds and faefucked supervision .

Aalis’s tail lashed twice, then stilled. “Fine. Nightly treatments, without fail. If you miss even one, we’ll reevaluate. If you have another episode , you’ll be confined to the hall again.”

“Understood.” He kept his composure, but inside he was dancing.

He followed Ghantal into the night air. It was a short flight from the eastern eighth-tier roost to his own on the western fifth tier.

He hadn’t known which roost was theirs, but once inside the eyrie, he recognized the rooms, the worn stone floors and dignified furnishings, though the knowledge felt thin, like ice over deep water.

Don’t tread too hard or it’ll crack and you’ll fall through.

He moved through the space, touching things. An armor chest—empty now, the gear probably destroyed. A weapons rack, also empty. A carved stone bench where he used to—what? The memory dissolved into pain as he ran into a mind wall. He hissed through his teeth.

“Your nesting chamber is that one,” Ghantal said quickly, motioning to an arched door. She nodded to the other that stood open, a dozen colorful moths milling around the lantern just inside it. “That one is mine.”

“I knew that,” he said gruffly, embarrassed that he, in fact, hadn’t known. He moved toward the one she said was his.

“I apologize for the dust,” she added quickly. “When you left, I shut the door, and I haven’t let the keepers touch it. Superstitious, I suppose.”

“It’s fine.” And then he entered his nest, and it wasn’t fine. Not at all.

The scent hit him like a physical blow. Female. Sharp like citrus, complicated with herbs. Underneath it all, something that felt familiar and essential. His whole body went rigid, from his tail to his cock.

“Who?” he growled.

“What?”

“Who was in my nest?” He strode to the furs and buried his face in them, breathing deep. The scent was old but unmistakable. Female. Lovely. His .

Memory crashed through a mind wall with the force of a catapulted stone. Soft skin under his hands. The give of flesh as his teeth sank deep. The taste of blood and binding. A shoulder, silvered in the moonlight, marked with his claim.

“I have a mate.”

Ghantal stopped breathing. “Brandt—”

“Where is she?” He searched for the bond, that golden thread that should connect them, but found only more walls. Walls within walls within walls. He couldn’t even sense where the bond should be. “Where is my mate?!”

“It’s complicated—”