Page 213 of Ashen Torment

So prone to trembling, my dear brother.

“Ivan was sent here by them,” I add.

“What?”

“He knows how to move,” I reassure him. “Do not worry.”

He shifts toward the decanter, his hand gripping the neck of the bottle as he pours brandy into a glass; the liquid descends slowly, gurgling slightly.

“Is it not too early?”

“When is it ever too early?” he replies, draining it in one decisive swallow.

I smile faintly and take a cigarette from the case. My hand vibrates slightly as I bring it to my lips; a match strikes, the flame dancing before igniting the tobacco. The smoke rises slowly in intertwining tongues.

“And as for Varlen,” I ask, letting the smoke slip slowly through my lips, “is there any news?”

“Nothing of consequence.”

I exhale. The smoke frays in the air.

“The peasants,” he resumes, “swear he was... fastidious.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Fastidious.”

Lucien begins to pace the room. “The sort who covers his nose in the middle of the fields. Animals annoy him. He looks down on everyone.”

“And yet, he is no nobleman.”

“Exactly.”

He pauses for a moment, then grips his glass. “They say he is superbly convinced that he is one.”

I draw again from the cigarette; the tobacco crackles softly.

“Our father was also fastidious.”

Lucien halts. “I know.”

He resumes his pacing, speaking again or perhaps merely continuing to move his lips. The words reach me blunted, distant. I squeeze the stub between my fingers, the ash breaks and falls. The scent hits me, identical to last night’s.

A room that is not this one. A warm bed. Evander’s steady breathing in his sleep. Me, sitting in the dark, smoking slowly so as not to wake him, counting the embers as one counts heartbeats.

The ember pulses. It burns my fingers.

A breath too rapid, broken, as if he were searching for air beneath a surface. He tosses between the sheets, his body contorting in brief jerks, hunted by something that chases him even in sleep. His face is damp. A sound escapes his throat, low, raw. I lean over him before I even think. He stiffens, an instant of mute resistance. Then he yields.

His body slumps against mine, uncertain, lopsided. His fingers claw at my arm searching for a point that won't slip away. His breath beats against my neck, hot, irregular.

A word slips out of me against his temple.

I run a hand through his damp hair, then down his back, slowly.

“Do not... speak.” His voice is frayed. Dull.

There is something humiliated in that tone. I want to do something. Something that calms him.

But I do not know how it is done.