He fell asleep at some point, or maybe passed out. When he managed to pry his eyes open again he heard the rush of water, the sound contained within a small space, and his eyes were filled with…with…
“Sunlight,” he breathed, voice the barest croak of sound.
“Hmm,” Vlad murmured. He set him down, gently, gently, on a hard surface, sitting upright, his back braced against something smooth and cool.
He blinked and let his head roll to the side, scanning the room. It was a bathroom, all white tile and black marble. He was sitting on the counter, leaning against the mirror. To his right was a massive claw-foot tub filling with steamy water. And above it, a leaded-glass window. Sunlight spilled in, a pure white shaft of it, gleaming across the clean, expensive fixtures.
He’d seen the sun in all its iterations while he dream-walked. But seeing it in person, now, falling through the diamond-shaped panes of a window, glimmering on the surface of the water, was like a religious experience.
He lifted one shaking hand and held it up before him, fingers spread so the sunlight slipped between them, limned them in silver.
“Why?” he asked, and looked to his brother. His voice shook, his body shook.
Vlad’s cruel features were as implacable as always. But his eyes hinted at warmth and softness. “When was the last time they bathed you?”
He wet his lips. “I…I don’t know.”
“Can you stand?”
“No.”
Vlad nodded and went to turn the taps off. The rushing of water left behind a bristling silence, filled only with the occasional plunk of a stray droplet, and Val’s unsteady, open-mouthed breathing.
Vlad returned. “Here,” he said, and reached for the tattered hem of Val’s shirt. He undressed him efficiently, but carefully, his sword-callused hands gentle. And when Val was naked, lifted him into his arms again and lowered him slowly into the full bath.
The water was startlingly hot, and Val clutched at his brother’s arms, hissing when it touched his skin. He was sore all over, bruised and tender, and at first it hurt badly.
“Wait,” he breathed when Vlad started to lift him back out. “Just…” And it began to ease. Began to soothe him. Vlad settled him all the way in, so his head rested on the edge of the tub, his body submerged beneath the surface.
The water clouded with dirt and grease almost immediately. His long, knotted hair floated, golden kelp waving gently as he fidgeted and the water lapped around his knees.
Val shut his eyes, tilted his head back, and tried to breathe slowly through his mouth. The heat, and the wet, and the tender way his brother had carried him up here…it was too much. He…
His chest hitched, and his throat ached, and he didn’t understand any of this.
“Why are you doing this?” he whispered. “Vlad, if you’re just going to hurt me…” Then he couldn’t stand this small kindness first. Going back to pain and filth after this – it would kill him.
He was aware of Vlad settling down on his knees beside the tub. Of him leaning in, pressing his face into the side of Val’s head, breathing deep through his nose. “It’s gone,” he said.
“What? What’s gone?”
Vlad’s hand settled over his, where it gripped the edge of the tub. “Val, do you remember meeting the mage they call the Necromancer?”
He struggled to think, eyes opening again, searching Vlad’s face for cues. His brother looked sosoft. As soft as he ever could, the mean bastard. Without the mustache he’d adopted as an adult, he looked more like the narrow-faced, pale-skinned brother Val had shared a bedchamber with for the first five years of his life. It grounded him.
“It was before they found you,” he said, remembering. “They had me – had me at the New York facility then. He came to see me. Red hair. Cocky smile. He smelledold.”
“Heisold,” Vlad agreed. “And very powerful. I smelled his magic on you the first time I came to visit you in the dungeon.”
“You smelled his…” Val felt his mouth drop open, and his eyes sprang wide. “What?”
Vlad nodded, mouth a thin, grim line. “He cast some sort of spell over you. I don’t know how. But he was spying on your dreams. How else do you think these idiot mortals found your friends? The mage was walking behind you, your constant shadow.”
Spied on. And he hadn’t known.
Hehadn’t known.
Nauseated suddenly, he pitched forward. Tried to. His hand slipped on the wet porcelain and the water rushed up to meet his face.
