Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,58
Nate. He was happy to see me. He must have missed me. At least I thought so. But clearly not enough.
Even though Havenfall’s corridors are quiet and flooded with pale morning sunlight and everyone’s still in their rooms, the inn still feels crowded somehow. There’s a heavy, unsettling buzz in the air. Once, when I was a kid, Nate explained to me how gas stovetops worked. For a while after that, every time Mom turned on the burner, I was terrified, fearing that she was filling the house up with gas that would explode any minute. That at any given moment we were breathing it in, turning the air, the walls, our bodies into kindling. That’s what I feel like now. Like the whole inn is filled with something dangerous and flammable, ready at any second to ignite.
Still, the smell of coffee and pastries is a comfort as I open the unlocked door to Marcus and Graylin’s front room. When I go in, Marcus is sitting on the couch, scribbling and crossing things out in a notebook held open on his lap. I know Graylin will have caught him up on what happened at Winterkill, but now we need to figure out what to do next. We hardly flew under the radar like we’d meant to. We lost the armor. We lost Nate. Assuming, that is, that we ever had him to begin with.
Brekken paces by the window. He glances at me with a small smile when I come in, but his eyes slide past mine without really meeting.
My stomach lurches uneasily as I pass him, sensing a cool distance between us. Brekken hardly spoke to me on the walk back to the inn last night. Once we’d both assured each other we were okay, he strode down the mountain toward Havenfall in silence. I chalked it up to him being stunned and exhausted, just like Graylin and I were. But now, I can’t seem to catch his eye. What’s his deal?
Graylin is at the little table by the kitchenette. Sura sits next to him with a book open between them. Before we went to Fiordenkill, he read aloud to her every morning, hoping to draw her out of her shell. I catch a glimpse of the illustrations—Bread and Jam for Frances.
My heart twists a little as I wave hello to them and go over to sit with my uncle. There must be a stash of picture books somewhere in the inn left over from when Nahteran and I were kids.
“Graylin told me what happened at Winterkill,” Marcus says as he pours me a cup of coffee. “He told me you saw … That boy. Was he really …”
Marcus’s voice trails off as I sit next to him on the couch. The mixture of suppressed hope and forced casualness in his face is a look I recognize well. I take a deep breath. I don’t feel ready to talk about my brother, or even think about him, but I’m not the only one who loved him. I can’t keep what I know from Marcus. He’s Nahteran’s family too.
So I shut off my emotions as best I can and tell him about how I ran into Nahteran in the halls of Winterkill. How he told me about some mysterious agenda the details of which he couldn’t share. How after he was kidnapped from Mom’s house, the Silver Prince traded Cadius for him and the Silver Prince took him in. How he’s the Prince’s officer now. And of course how he took the armor and ran.
In the gloom, I tell them all what I’ve scarcely admitted even to myself. That I’m afraid Nahteran brought the phoenix flame armor to the Silver Prince.
I don’t want to believe it’s possible. But I can’t forget the sharp, sudden anger that kindled in his eyes when I said Mom’s name. It makes a terrible kind of sense. After all, I always blamed myself for what happened to my brother. Blamed myself and blamed Mom, if I’m being honest. Why wouldn’t he as well?
When I’m done speaking, Marcus looks haggard and haunted. He casts a look over at Graylin, but his husband and Sura are still engrossed in their lesson. I should comfort him, give him a hug or something, but right now it doesn’t feel like it would help. Because I have no peace, no comfort to give.
“Nahteran must have a high status in Byrn,” Marcus says, sounding troubled. “To be doing this kind of thing