Sarn throttled back his paranoia. Miren must have unlocked the door at some point and forgotten to relock it. Worry slid off his shoulders staggering him, and Sarn leaned against the lintel to collect himself.
Ran stilled, his face darkening with worry.
“Yes, I’m back.” Sarn ruffled his son’s hair before the boy could say a word returning the smile to his lips.
A storm cloud rolled in wearing Miren’s face. Sarn bit back a curse at the hurricane brewing in his brother’s eyes, but it was too late. The words were already out of his mouth.
“Why was the door unlocked?”
Miren ignored his question. “Where have you been?”
“Running,” Sarn said, and his magic allowed it because it was the truth. “Lots of running and I’m tired. Can we talk about this later?”
Never would be preferable but Miren would only give him so much leeway, and he had a lot to puzzle out.
“Ad-ven-ture—you promised.”
Ran crossed his arms over his chest and regarded Sarn with expectant eyes.
“Tomorrow before I go back to work.”
“You promise?”
Sarn nodded, wondering how he would find the answers he needed and take his son on an outing. Maybe I can combine the two. Tomorrow I can figure that out.
Ran glared at him until he received a verbal acknowledgment.
“I promise.”
“You’ve been running for twenty-four hours?” Miren clenched his fists.
“For a good part of it, yes.”
“And the rest?”
The rest he refused to discuss right now. Sarn’s stomach growled. Ran tipped the basket searching it for crumbs.
“No food?”
Ran’s face fell when Sarn shook his head.
Sarn glanced at his brother. “Have you eaten?”
Please let the answer be yes. Climbing all those stairs was out of the question right now.
Ran shook his head. “I’m hungry.”
“No, we haven’t eaten. We were waiting for you.”
Miren brushed past Sarn and slumped onto a three-legged stool. The disgruntled teen slammed around the books littering the table.
Why didn't my brother grab something to eat on his way back from class? Even juggling his crutch and schoolbooks, he could have grabbed something for Ran. Every day, the brat passed the middle kitchen on his way to and from school.
Aren’t you overreacting a tad, asked his conscience.
Maybe I am. It was hard not to since he’d raised Miren.
Sarn set the basket inside their cave before his son could climb into it.
“Then I’d better get us something to eat.”
And calm down. Sarn stalked away, Ran at his heels.
“Wait—shouldn’t he stay here?” Miren asked from inside their cave.
Ran’s chin firmed, and he shook his head. Standing on tiptoe, he grasped Sarn’s hand.
No more separations, the boy’s eyes begged. But aloud Ran said, “I go with you.”
Sarn nodded.
Ran’s shoulders sagged in relief, and a tentative smile played at the corners of his lips.
“Sarn?”
“It’s okay. He can come with me.”
Sarn squeezed his son’s hand. Thank Fate he had planned for such an eventuality. Paranoia had its benefits. So did having a talkative son.
The instant they turned a bend, Ran launched into a full report of all his doings. Sarn half-listened until a comment caught him flatfooted.
“You spent the whole day with my brother?”
Ran nodded. “He wouldn’t play with me.”
Hearing the tap-scrape-tap of his brother’s crutch-assisted gait, Sarn turned. His glare fell full force on Miren.
“Why didn’t you go to school?”
I traded my freedom for that education, and Miren had blown it off as if it meant nothing. Sarn's blood boiled. Everything I’ve been through in the last twenty-four bells had been to pay for Miren’s schooling. This wasn’t the first time Miren had skipped school this month.
Maybe I should have sent myself to school instead.
No, Sarn told the regret pricking his heart. Miren is the smart one, the normal one, the one with a shot at a future. Miren deserves the finest education I can provide.
“And who’d have watched him if I had gone?”
Anger sparked in Miren’s eyes as the teen gestured to Ran.
Ran pointed to his chest, his little face clouding with confusion.
“The Foundlings—I have a deal with them. Did they refuse?” Oh, if they had, they could kiss regular meals goodbye.
“Ow,” Ran said reminding Sarn to loosen his grip. None of this was his son’s fault.
“Sorry,” he said, but he held onto his son’s hand.
“No, I didn’t ask them.” Miren sagged and leaned on his crutch. “You were gone, and I thought you’d return soon. So, I put off going. When you didn’t return, I was so worried.”
Miren’s mud-colored eyes begged Sarn to understand, and he did.
“You should have gone. School is important. It’ll lift you out of here.”
Sarn gestured to the dank tunnel around them. So you don’t end up broken and Indentured like me.
Miren stared at his boots. The teenager had screwed up, and he knew it.
Sarn looked away. If only Miren would take this whole school thing seriously. Maybe I'm being too hard on him.
It was hard to tell because the line between parent and sibling was blurred by time and care. Sarn scrubbed a hand over his face to wipe away the frustration eating at him. When did our relationship become so emotionally charged? Was that my doing?
“I appreciate you watching my son, but next time, please go to school instead.”
Miren nodded.
“I’m hungry,” Ran announced.
“I’m working on fixing that,” Sarn said as he continued, his pensive son at his side.
Miren limped along bringing up the rear.
“Where are we going?”
Ran looked up at Sarn with curious green eyes, not impatient ones. Good, neither the walk nor the delay had done his son any harm.
“Does this walk have a destination?”
“Yes, food,” Ran replied.
The imp cast a glance over his shoulder at his uncle to catch his reaction then faced forward again, smiling.
“I’m sorry.”
Sarn nodded. “Yeah, me too. I’m sorry I’m not here much and that I’m a terrible brother, but I need you to trust me. I only want what’s best for you.”
Miren fell silent.
Around the next bend, Sarn halted at a rock pile and started hauling stones out of the way. The instant he’d cleared a child-sized cleft, Ran shot through it.
“Make light Papa, so I can see.”
“Ran, come out. There are heavy things in there that could hurt you if they fall.”
Sarn reached through the gap, and his fingertips brushed his son’s shoulder.
Ran dodged and kept poking about the dark cave. After making one more grab for his son, Sarn gave up and resumed hauling pumpkin-sized rocks out of the way.
“What is this place?” Miren asked.
“Storage,” Sarn grunted as he lifted a boulder half his size.
“Papa make light. I can’t see.”
“Come out, and you’ll have plenty of light.”
“No, I want to help.”
Sarn reached for another boulder but stopped when Ran poked his head out.
“What’s in here?”
This time, Sarn grabbed his son before the boy could dodge and removed him from the cave.
“Give me a minute, and I’ll show you.”
Judging the hole was wide enough, Sarn reached in and withdrew a jar. He kept his body between the hole and his son as he handed the jar to his brother.
“What does it say?”
A flabbergasted Miren read the label. “It just says peaches.”
> “I like peaches.”
Smiling, Ran reached for the jar.
“Then we’ll have peaches. You like peaches, right?”
Sarn shot his brother a look and froze when he saw a new storm brewing in Miren’s eyes. This one looked to be even more severe than the last one he’d weathered. Even Ran stepped away from his uncle.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this place?”
“It’s not a secret. I thought you knew.”
Where does this anger come from? So what if I stockpiled a few necessities. I'm a paranoid bastard, and everyone knows that. Everyone also depended on Sarn for every damned thing, making this cache a necessity.
“How long?”
Miren glared so hard fire should have shot out of his eyes.
Not something Sarn wanted to discuss in front of his son. He blinked at the spot a too-quiet Ran had occupied a moment before. Turning, he poked his head into the cave and spotted the boy rounding a ceiling-high stack of jars.
Sarn followed his son but stopped when Miren caught hold of his sleeve.
“Damn it, how long has this existed? Answer me.”
“Since that time I screwed up.”
That night, he’d ended up in the dungeon. Sarn pried his brother’s hand off him as recognition dawned in Miren’s eyes. He turned his back on his brother. At least the experience taught me a valuable lesson. I must look out for my son and my brother because nobody else will.
“It was after that—incident. Maybe a month before Ran’s first birthday, I don’t know. I did it for him because I couldn’t stand the idea of him starving.”
So Sarn had made sure his son would always have enough. Growing up as an orphan had turned his life into a constant struggle for survival—a battle his son would never face.
“I’m not an idiot,” Sarn added. “I’m not irresponsible. I’m not reckless damn it! I’m not—”
Her accusations looped through his head on a constant spin cycle. Ran’s mother had called him all those things and more. Worse still, the Rangers believed he was all those things and more because of one night’s stupidity over three years ago. I'll prove them all wrong.
Sarn took a swing at the stonewall but froze when emerald lightning streaked across his knuckles. Staring at evidence of his freakishness did nothing to soothe his anger or silence her voice in his head. Sarn spotted his son exiting the cave and lowered his fist.
“I know. Okay?” Miren jabbed his thumb into his chest as he pontificated. “This is me, your brother. I’m alive right now because of you.”
Sarn nodded. “You’re the sum of all the good decisions I’ve made over the last eleven years.”
Miren’s mouth opened and closed a few times as he accepted that stunner.
“I’m sorry if I haven’t said so more often. I’m so proud of you and what you’ve accomplished.”
“You are?”
“Me too!” Ran raised his hand.
Miren blinked away tears and patted Ran on the head.
“Thanks, but let’s get back to my point because it needs to be said—irresponsible people don’t indenture themselves on another’s behalf. Hell, no one except you would even think of doing that. And while we’re on this subject, Beku said those horrible things. I didn’t. And where is she now? She’s gone, and I’m not.”
“Mama’s gone,” Ran repeated in a forlorn voice.
“You’ve still got my brother and I.”
Sarn ruffled his son’s hair and earned a nod and a twitch of his son's lips but no smile. He’d get one when they ate those peaches.
“Don’t you trust me?”
Miren’s question walloped Sarn, and he reeled for a second uncertain he’d heard right.
“Of course, I trust you. You’re my brother. I raised you.”
“Then why do all this?” Miren gestured to the black slash of the cave behind Sarn. “Why not hide the food in our cave? We’ve lived there on and off for three years. You had plenty of time to move this cache. Why didn’t you?”
Sarn opened his mouth to reply, but no answer came other than the absolute truth. Our cave is vulnerable. But he closed his mouth instead of admitting that and scaring them.
“Because it’s my responsibility and I’d be shirking it if I didn’t have a backup plan.”
Sarn met Miren’s gaze, but his brother looked away. After a tense moment, Miren nodded. Maybe the troubled teen understood. Sarn seized another jar and handed it to Miren for identification.
“Stew,” Miren shrugged. “It doesn’t say what kind.”
After he grabbed a bag of hard biscuits known as waybread, Sarn surveyed the stacked jars. In the end, he settled on the mysterious stew, the promised peaches, and five jars with smeared labels. They looked old, and he needed to check their edibility. Ran insisted on lugging the peaches back to their cave, and he let the boy carry it, snug in his little arms.
Guilt sent Sarn back to pick up more jars. Over Miren’s objections, he left those extra jars outside the Foundlings’ door. After knocking, he bolted the hundred-feet and one bend to his door. I've suffered through enough drama for one night. I refused to deal with anymore.
But life wasn’t through screwing with him yet. A pair of beady eyes watched him from a shadowed alcove, and dark whispers filled the creature's mind.
Part Two:
Conspiracies in the Dark
“Oh, it’s red. I like red.”
“Don’t touch it. It’s hot.”
“Why’s it hot?” Ran asked.
Sarn picked his son up and set him down away from the makeshift fire pit.
“Because red lumir makes more heat than light.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s red?”
Sarn laughed at the disbelief on his son’s face then turned when he felt eyes watching him from a pile of discarded clothes. There’s nothing there. You're starting at shadows.
“I mean it. I think it has to do with the red color.”
“Are you sure you can put the jar in there with the red lumir? What if the glass melts?”
Miren turned one of the sealed jars over in his hands with a skeptical look on his face.
“I’ve done this before, and it was ok. It’s tempered glass,” Sarn said a little too sharply. I need to calm down. I earned a respite. But his son didn’t get that message.
Sarn threw an arm out to thwart Ran’s latest attempt to get by him. Catching the boy around his waist, he deposited his son a safe distance away.
“Don’t go near it. It’s hot.”
Ran gave an obligatory nod, but the red stones pulsed, entrancing the boy. Unless redirected, Ran would singe his fingers. And I'll have to spend the next half hour while the food warms guarding the fire pit. Sarn cast about for something to entertain his son. But he found nothing near at hand save piles of clothes and other flammable items, but no watchers. Because I imagined it. But the clutter was real.
Great, I have all the ingredients for an inferno within reach. And that wasn’t a hallucination. Sarn bent and picked up the discarded items. His sixth sense urged him to keep his son close.
“Hold this and this for me.”
Sarn handed his son some of the items he picked up off the floor and towed his helper in his wake. Maybe I should make time for a little housekeeping once a week.
If it could burn, Sarn relocated it to a pile away from the fire pit. Something about the red lumir niggled at him as he passed it, arms overflowing with laundry, something important.
Sarn sat his son down on the straw tick occupying the back of the hemispherical cave. After he handed the child his stuffed bear, Sarn went to check on the first jar and consider his next move.
Ran landed next to him, his little hand moving too quick to stop. Magic shot out of Sarn, darting between his son and those fiery crystals but he'd misjudged. they weren't the target of his son's curiosity.
“Ow,” Ran complained right before he stuffed his injured digit into his mouth. “That’s hot.�
��
“Yes, it has to be to loosen the lid. I don’t want us eating wax with our stew. Let me see your hand.”
Sarn held out his hand and let his magic drop. I'm wound too tightly tonight. Tension and tiredness were making his head pound. I must calm down. I don't want to hurt anyone. And his magic could if he wasn’t careful. Ran produced his injured digit.
Sarn scraped at a thin layer of wax covering his son’s index finger and relaxed. The flesh was a little pinker than his son's other fingers, but the boy was otherwise unharmed. Maybe Ran had learned his lesson.
“Why?” Ran tugged his hand free and sucked on his sore finger.
“Because it tastes bad.”
Sarn shuddered at the memory and resumed prying the softened wax seal up with his fingers.
“Wax liquefies when heated. If I don't remove it, it’ll drip into the jar and mix with the stew. The one time that happened, it was gross, and your mother had a fit.”
As the seal separated, some wax crumbs fell into the stew, but the jar’s mouth was too narrow to do anything about them. Sarn nestled the jar between red lumir stones to finish heating. While he repeated the process on the other jars, he considered the lumir stones. Something about them still bugged him.
Since starting a fire was punishable by death in the enchanted forest, smart travelers carried lumir crystals—red for heat, blue for cold and other colors for light. But he’d sensed none at either murder site, and their absence bothered him. It was another anomaly in a day already fraught with them.
What had they used for light? Hunger made Sarn set the question aside for now.
“Come on.”
Sarn tapped his son’s shoulder and gestured for the boy to rise. Curiosity propelled Ran to his feet.
Miren sat his stool mute as a gathering storm. What did I do to upset him? Any moment now, the troubled teen would explode. Maybe an offering of peaches could delay it.
Sarn rummaged about the various crenulations water had carved into the cave’s walls. He unearthed two grimy bowls but no spoons or other implements to dole out the food.
“You didn’t spend twenty-four hours running,” Miren spoke in a calm voice at odds with the anger radiating off him.
Ran looked up at Sarn, interested in the answer.
Now they were both ganging up on him, damn. He had to keep Miren ignorant about the whole kidnapping thing. Tension tightened every muscle in Sarn's body as he stood there holding the dirty bowls.
Curse Breaker: Books 1-4 Page 15