what if Blay’s throwaway comment had been the reason for this?
What if this was all his fault?
On some level, Qhuinn realized that this “search” of his was just an aimless wander. As he trudged through the snow, he was rational enough to recognize that he should form a proper team of people, and draw on the expertise of the folks in the household for procedures and best practices. But he was locked into this directionless walking, his footfalls crunching through the drifts, his body going in whatever direction it wanted, his eyes ceaselessly roaming the ground.
The fact that he wasn’t actually looking for remains, but rather an enormous burn mark on the ground was the answer to why he didn’t ask for help from anyone. It was also why there was no rush. This was not a rescue mission. In fact, not only was there going to be no one to save, but no body, either.
So he wouldn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.
As the first realization that Luchas was truly gone hit him, he coughed. And then coughed some more. When his eyes watered, it was clearly because of the cold—
At first, he thought it was a shadow. After all, the moon was out, and given the forest’s tree population, there were a lot of them on the white ground. Yet this one up ahead and off to the right was different. It wasn’t long and thin, not bough or trunk shaped. It was also jet black, although only in places—
“Luchas!”
Qhuinn took off, his body surging forward, his breath exploding from his lungs, from his mouth. He covered the distance fast, even as he told himself he surely was imagining this. His mind had to be playing tricks on him—
He slowed.
He stopped.
How was this possible?
On the ground, about ten feet in front of him, was a pile of black robing that had been partially claimed by the snow, the accumulation creeping up the contours of what was under the draping.
Qhuinn took a step forward. And another.
And then he fell to his knees by what appeared to be his brother’s remains.
The cane that Luchas had used was right where he had collapsed. And at the hem of the robe, the foot of the prosthesis stuck out. But there were no scorch marks, no ashes, no evidence of combustion.
Qhuinn’s hand shook as he reached for the hood.
Before he pulled back the fold, he looked up to Blay. “How is this real?”
“I don’t know.”
Images from the past filtered behind Qhuinn’s eyes: Of the dining room at the family house. Of Solange. Of their parents. Of Luchas, the night he had come through his transition and been presented his gold signet ring—
“Oh . . . God,” Qhuinn moaned as he moved the hood away.
His brother’s eyes were open, the gray gaze fixated on eternity, unblinking, unseeing. And Luchas’s face had frozen into marble, the cast of his hollow cheeks and his too-prominent jaw a death mask of that which had been alive not so long ago, his lips parted and white, his teeth clamped together as if he had been in pain when he had breathed his last.
Qhuinn looked up. Overhead, there were branches, but not enough of a canopy to filter out the sun that had blazed in the wake of the blizzard’s departure.
Unable to comprehend both the enormity of what was before him, and the inexplicable nature of the unburned remains, he obsessed over the mystery of how a vampire’s body could have survived the sunshine. Death was no insulation for incineration.
“Luchas . . .” he breathed. “Oh, brother mine.”
And then none of that mattered.
Curling over the remains, he wrapped his arms around the snow-dusted folds of the robe, resting his cheek on the hard bone of the shoulder.
As he closed his eyes, he pictured Luchas as he had so often been, back in his hospital room, sitting in his reading chair, a leather-bound book held in his ruined hands.
“I’m sorry,” Qhuinn mumbled. “I’m so sorry . . . Luchas, why wasn’t I there when you needed me? Why . . .”
Blay took a handkerchief out of the back pocket of his slacks and pressed it into his eyes. As tears continued to sting, he struggled to draw air into his lungs.
There was no greater suffering than seeing your true love in pain.
Sniffling, he wiped his face. Down at his feet, Qhuinn was draped over his brother like a shroud, that huge warrior’s body covering the other male’s broken one,