Page 35 of Radiant

“Do you think I don’t know this is my fault?” I let my anger loose on Tove, but this was anger without teeth as well. It was guilt dressed in anger’s clothing. “But what am I to do? How can I help him?”

Tove looked at me, sadness streaking his face. “Oh, child. You know what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to give him relief. To let him find peace. You’re supposed to help him do what he cannot do himself and put an end to his suffering.”

So I did. It was the last time Owain smiled at me. He said, “I wish it could have been forever too, but this is what I want.”

So I did it. I did it.

17

~Ethan

Auris had gone still, and if he’d been able to, I might have thought he was sleeping. He held me tightly, really tightly, not anywhere near tight enough that it would hurt, but I thought it was a kind of anchoring thing for him, keeping me near and pressed against his side while the fire bathed us both in orange light.

I touched his forearm. “I’m really sorry I made you live through that again. I’m sorry I made you tell me.”

Auris released his hold on me, but only so he could run a hand along my spine. “There’s no reason to be sorry. Owain was… He is my greatest shame. I want you to know about him. I also very much don’t want you to know about him, but I need you to. Do you understand?”

I nodded, my chin digging into his chest. “It’s why you said you wouldn’t turn me into a vampire.”

“Yet. I said not yet.” He lifted his head so he could look at me. “That is, if it continues to be something you want. It may not be, of course. Not after that story. I understand that, and it changes nothing.”

I snorted. “It changes everything. But I don’t… Knowing you exist is one thing, but if magic is real, that changes how I see the world. You recall Charlie talking about were-bears? I think what he means are berserkers, and if those exist—along with werewolves—then I can’t be sure everything I thought was real really is. Well, the other way around, I guess.

“What I mean is, there is so much to see out there, much more than I could see in one lifetime, and I want to find every last abandoned place, every last beautiful place, and I want to see and capture them. The world used to be this clear pool where I could see the bottom thanks to all the chlorine, and now it’s this funky garden pond with all the algae and dead plants everywhere, and I can barely see the surface, but I’m standing on the side, getting ready to jump in. It’s a process.”

Auris played with my hair again, weaving it around his fingers while his eyes rested on me. Examined me. “That is very well put, Ethan. Very well put indeed.”

I craned my neck so I could see him better. “You sound like a proud teacher.”

“That makes you a high-achieving student. Is that not a good thing? Don’t you want a gold star?”

I cleared my throat. “Well, we’re sleeping together, so it’s a forbidden romance. Careful with those stars.”

He shrugged. “There are worse things than finding love in unusual places.”

I stretched and sat up from the cuddle puddle. Thick, heavy snowflakes were dancing in front of the window like static. I reached for the plate with the muffins on it and bit into one while enjoying the sight outside the window as well as the one in front of me: Auris, spread out on his back, two buttons open at his collar, his black eyes on me.

I licked chocolate off my thumb. “Did you regret it? Stepping in to save Owain that day you two first met?”

He looked away from me and up at the ceiling, but not for long. “In the beginning, yes. I thought a short, hard life full of misery would have been preferable, but I was wallowing. Feeling sorry for myself. It was, in today’s terms, not a good look.” He shrugged. “Like I said, I was privileged. My sorrow felt so very weighty, but in reality, Owain had suffered for my foolishness, and if anyone should have been allowed regret, it was him. Before, when he was human, he enjoyed being on the island, safe, fed, picking apples and spending lazy summer afternoons lying in the sun.” Auris sighed. “He never spoke of regret.”

“He sounded happy in your story.”

Auris nodded. “By and large, he was. In the beginning, he would cry sometimes, at night. Tove would notice and comfort him, much like he had done with me when I was a child. Owain also worried about making mistakes around my mother, but that was mostly because she was a perfectionist who had no qualms about telling people how things ought to be done and that she didn’t appreciate them being done differently. I was even jealous at first, because she went easier on him than she ever did on me.”

I stuffed the last of the muffin into my mouth. “Did he ever leave the island? It didn’t sound like it.”

“He did. We did. There was a boat. Kelp and apples and salt were plentiful on the island, but grain wasn’t, and while Tove did a lot of the shopping at night, we would all go to the next big town sometimes.” Auris smiled, lost in his memories. “You’d think it nothing more than a tiny village, but we were always very excited. In a lot of ways, it was like a family excursion, and Tove would allow us each a cup of beer so long as we helped Mother carry things and sell the potions she made. It was not a bad childhood to have.”

I nodded and tried to imagine it while munching down on another muffin. “Did you have long hair then, too?”

“Yes, but not this long. Maybe your length. It wasn’t uncommon. You’d have fit right in.”

I chuckled. “Little Auris running through the village streets with his friend, hair billowing behind him.”

“We didn’t do all that much running, and I was not little. My hair may have been braided sometimes, so not as much shampoo-commercial billowing as you might expect.”

“I’m having trouble imagining it. I think what would really help would be if you went ahead and braided your hair for me.”