kitchens of Hala Smoków, because she had been born a commoner and she’d never really gotten the knack of aristocracy. Her black hair, shining red in the lights of the fires. Chatting with the servants, affectionately cursing the kikimora behind the stove.
His father, stamping through the kitchen doors, tossing aside his sword and shaking the dragon soot out of his black hair. The door swinging on its hinges, the wolves howling beyond, the long winding roads of Hala Smoków peppered with the lights from its houses.
“Close the door,” his mother had said, shooing Tadeusz away with a rag. “You’ll let the bugs in, and then we’ll never sleep—”
“Let them come!” his father had yelled, seizing his mother by the waist and spinning her around the kitchen.
“They’ll keep us up, Tad!”
She would fall into his arms.
“You can never have too much light!”
And then the two of them would waltz across the stone floors, fireflies drifting like a thousand candle flames. Lukasz had been, in those moments, perfectly happy.
Now he lit a cigarette in the cool damp.
“You know what our problem is?” asked Lukasz.
Franciszek smiled wryly.
“Surely not the vodka.”
“No,” agreed Lukasz. “Definitely not the vodka.”
For a moment, he lost his train of thought. Then it came back, fragile as the mist lifting off the headstones.
“Our problem is,” he said, with great effort. He fished in his pockets for his lighter. “Is that we always go on about dragons, and wolves, and living in the Mountains for a thousand years. They assume we’re ancient and outdated because that’s how we act.”
A shadow passed over Franciszek’s face, but he produced a small gold lighter and handed it to Lukasz.
“We tried to belong,” he said in a hollow voice.
Lukasz cupped the lighter around the cigarette.
“We didn’t try very hard,” he said.
“Maybe they wouldn’t let us.”
“Maybe we were making excuses.”
When he tried to give the lighter back, Franciszek negated the gesture with a small shake of his head.
“Your need is greater than mine,” he said, smiling.
The older and the younger. One who still remembered those blue hills and who knew what it felt like to belong. The other, who barely remembered and who, until this second, had never cared.
“I’m sorry, Lukasz,” said Franciszek, after a moment. “I have always been hard on you. You were my favorite—maybe that’s why I was so protective of you.” He smiled sadly. “Even if I know you don’t like me much.”
“I like you!” Lukasz protested. “You’re my brother, for God’s sake.”
Franciszek smiled, without anger.
“But I’m not your favorite.”
“That’s not true,” protested Lukasz, but it sounded weak even to him.
He loved Franciszek—he really did—but his brother had always been so serious. Berating him for the tattoo he’d gotten after Rafa? left. Constantly drilling lessons into him: reading and table manners and dancing and how to be polite to the fine ladies and gentlemen on the street.
You won’t be hunting dragons forever, Franciszek would always say. You need to know how to do something else.
Lukasz had ignored him. He’d avoided him and tagged along with the twins or gone hunting with Eryk.
“It’s all right,” said Franciszek. “I understand.”
Franciszek was the best of them all: not brutal like the twins, not perfectly heroic like Anzelm. Just unfailingly honest, and good, and kind. Lukasz wondered what they had done to deserve a brother like Franciszek.
“No,” said Lukasz. “No, Fraszko. I love you. You’re my brother. Let’s just—let’s get this Apofys, and then—”
Franciszek interrupted.
“Don’t you understand?” He turned to Lukasz. Behind his glasses, his eyes were circled in blue. He was close to Lukasz’s age, but he looked older than twenty-one. “I’m not coming. I’m going back.”
Lukasz was a Wolf-Lord. He had killed dragons. He was on the side of Mountains and wolves and the kinds of legends that didn’t die quietly in the darkness. But still, his eyes filled with tears.
“No,” he said. “No, Fraszko, you can’t—”
“I remember the path,” said his brother, speaking over him. “I remember the way home. I don’t want to die hunting Apofi or ferreting Lern?ki out of storm drains. I want to see the Mountains again.”
“You will—” started Lukasz.
“When?” asked Franciszek sharply.
Lukasz opened his mouth, but no answer came out. He didn’t have an answer, he realized. He was never going back to those damn Mountains, and Franciszek knew it.
His brother smiled tiredly.
“See?” he said. “You’ve always belonged out here.”
“Don’t do this,” begged Lukasz, and his voice cracked. “Just listen to me for once, Fraszko.”
Franciszek looked away.
“You’ll be happier without me,” he said. “I won’t be bothering you.