Page 105 of Decimation

I do not answer immediately. In my head, I see our father’s face the way I last saw it alive; hard as winter earth, eyes that missed nothing, hands that had never once been gentle.

I hear his voice, the one he used when he spoke of duty, sacrifice, and the terrible weight of leadership. I think about what he would say if he could see what Konstantine has become.

He would be furious.

No. Furious is too small a word. Our father would look at the sins Konstantine has committed, and he would feel something closer to divine wrath.

The Brethren was his life. His soul. His reason for drawing breath. And Konstantine has weakened it, ruined it, twisted it into something unrecognizable. Something rotten. If he could see his eldest son now, he would weep. And then he would reach for the sword he kept above the mantle.

None of this crosses my face.

“He would be proud,” I say. “You’ve held the Brethren together through storms that would have broken lesser men. You’ve made the hard choices, the necessary choices. Father understood necessity.”

Konstantine’s shoulders drop a fraction of an inch. The tension bleeding out of him like air from a punctured lung. He needed to hear that. He is so desperate for absolution that he will drink it from any cup, even one held by the brother he has spent years trying to destroy.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. “That means something. Coming from you.”

I nod back, because I do not trust myself to speak.

The fire pops. A log shifts, sending sparks spiralling up the chimney like the souls of the damned ascending to nothing. I watch them disappear into the darkness and think about how many souls my brother has sent in the same direction, how many more would follow if I let him live.

“Tell me about Paitlyn,” I say.

The change is immediate. His fingers tighten on the glass. His jaw sets in that way it does when he is about to lie or about to rage, and I have learned to read the difference in the twitch of his left eye.

Tonight it is fear. Genuine, bone-deep fear. Interesting.

“What about her?”

“Why were you and Ines so determined to make her disappear?”

He runs his hand over his face, the palm dragging across stubble I don’t think he’s shaved in days. When it comes away, his eyes are older than they were a moment ago. Ancient. Haunted.

“Secrets,” he mutters. “It always comes back to secrets.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that secrets are what got us all cursed. Secrets are what caused all of this. If you hadn’t started digging, Lazarus. If you hadn’t kept pushing and prying and refusing to let things lie…”

“I started digging because things didn’t add up.” I keep my voice steady, but something cold is winding its way around my spine.

“Curiosity killed the cat.” He laughs, but there is no humour in it. “And satisfaction brought it back. Isn’t that how the saying goes? But that’s not true, is it? Satisfaction doesn’t bring anything back. The dead stay dead. The buried stay buried. Until someone like you comes along with a shovel and a righteous conscience, and digs everything up again.”

I do not react. I have spent years learning not to react when my brother tries to wound me.

“What is the big deal with Paitlyn?” I ask again. “What is she to us?”

He is quiet for a long moment. The fire whispers to itself in the grate. The wind presses against the windows like a stranger trying to find a way in. When he finally speaks, his voice is so low I have to lean forward to catch the words.

“Her grandmother is an Attainted.”

I wait for more. When nothing comes, I scoff. The sound is louder than I intended in the quiet room. “That cannot be it. That superstitious nonsense…”

“You think it’s superstition?” His head snaps up, and for a moment I see the man he used to be. Sharp. Dangerous. Present. “You think I would have gone to all this trouble for superstition?”

“It’s an old wives’ tale. Attainted bloodlines. Curses passed down through generations. It’s the kind of thing the elders used to frighten children with around the fire. It’s not real.”

“You never read the ancient texts.” He settles back into the chair, and the sharpness fades as quickly as it appeared. “Father never permitted it. You weren’t the heir. You weren’t going to be Grand Master. There was no reason for you to know any of it.”