Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,49

I grin weakly. “But I’m here because of the soul trade. Uh, you know about the soul trade, right? Obviously.”

Nate’s—Nahteran’s—face darkens. He nods, and my chest tightens. Suddenly I don’t want to know what it is exactly that he knows, so I plow ahead.

“I came here to save the captured Solarians. And I’m not alone. Graylin is here, and my … friend Brekken.”

Now that the words are finally coming, I can’t shut them off.

Nate smiles slightly. “I remember Graylin. But Winterkill is a fortress, Maddie. You’ll need more than a few reinforcements to get to the Solarians.”

“How do you know?” I almost trip over my words. I look around the room, realizing for the first time the strangeness of it, how it looks like he’s been here at least a few days. “What are you doing here anyway? You’re not a captive anymore, are you?”

“No,” Nahteran says, and it seems like the temperature in the room drops a few degrees. “Never again.”

I wait, not sure what to say. I’m still so happy to see him, but nothing about him being here adds up. Something on this chair is poking me in the butt. I shift in my seat and pull a stray clothing item out from under me that Nate didn’t catch earlier. I’m about to toss it on the pile with the others when I realize it’s a Byrnisian jacket, similar to the one I love wearing to Havenfall’s evening balls, only in a men’s cut. The scales were poking me.

Looking around, I’m confused to see a mix of clothing from three out of four Adjacent Realms on my brother’s furniture. I hadn’t noticed before, but there are T-shirts and jeans lying around amidst the traditional Fiorden clothes. And even Byrnisian silk, robes, and jumpsuits in the bright colors they favor in that hot, volatile world. I turn the jacket idly over and freeze. There’s something embroidered on the back. It’s a spreading silver tree.

The Silver Prince’s motif: S.P.

“What is this?” I whisper.

“Like I said, it’s a long story,” Nahteran says, meeting my eyes.

“But this …” I hold up the jacket with the insignia. “This is …”

I don’t want to say the words, really. Don’t want to give voice and weight to the truth taking shape in my head. But Nahteran doesn’t say anything. Just waits in silence. So I have to say it.

“You work for the Silver Prince,” I finish in a whisper.

Nahteran blinks.

I think about pulling out the folded piece of paper in my dress bearing his name—the trade log—but I decide not to. I don’t want to push him toward things he might not want to talk about. My brother is here. He’s alive, but I still haven’t seen him smile and that makes it all feel not quite real.

At length, he pulls another armchair up close and flops down into it. Something about his movements seem so familiar. That quality of being unselfconscious, but still graceful somehow. Mom’s little changeling.

“I want to tell you what happened,” he says, sounding tired. “But I don’t really know where to start.”

I realize that he reminds me of Taya. Taya, you were right.

The thought of her is another knife in my chest. She had always held out hope that her brother was alive, when I had long given up mine for dead. She’s Nate’s biological sister. They were separated as toddlers, back before Nate was taken in by my mom and his name was Terran. Both names broken halves of what I guess must’ve been his first name, his birth name. Nahteran. Brekken told me that in Solarian, it meant soldier.

I bet his and Taya’s Solarian parents never anticipated him turning out like this.

“Cadius took me and traded my soul to the Silver Prince,” my brother says. His words are timid, like they’re scouts sent venturing out onto dangerous land. “And then I was brought back.”

So many questions live under the surface of those words. I still don’t know how the unbinding happens, how the fragmented and trapped souls bound to their silver prisons can be returned to life and body.

Maybe Nate—Nahteran—can help, I think wildly. But I don’t ask him, not yet. There are so many questions fighting to be asked, and through it all, something inside tells me I need to tread lightly.

“It was him,” he says, his voice very soft and impossible to read. “The Silver Prince brought me back.”

“And you’ve been in Byrn all this time?” I ask, trying to fit the timeline together. “But