I chuckled to myself and kept walking. The Universe had proven Curran wrong: a person who aggravated him more than me did, in fact, exist.
Bran caught up with me on the stairs. “Where are you headed?”
“To a balcony. I want some fresh air.” And maybe to doze off a bit. Although I was no longer sleepy. The magic hummed in me, eager to be released. Is this how it would be when the tech finally fell for good? I wasn’t sure I could handle that much raw power. I had to hold myself back, as if I was riding a crazed horse at full gallop and the reins kept slipping through my fingers.
Bran strode next to me, completely unconcerned with his lack of clothes. I stepped into the first room I saw, pulled a pair of gray sweatpants out of a chest of drawers—just about every room in the Keep had them, since people who shifted shapes found it convenient to have extra clothes present—and handed the pants to him.
“Can’t control yourself?” He slipped into the sweatpants.
“That’s it,” I murmured, stole the spare blanket and pillow, and left the room.
He followed me to the balcony, where I made a makeshift bed in the recessed doorway and curled up. The stone shielded me from the sun, but I saw it all: the sky veiled with sunshine and touched with feathery smudges of clouds, the bright greenery of the trees, rustling in the breeze, the stone walls, still smooth and warm to the touch. I smelled the honeyed flowers and the light scent of wolves on the breeze. I drank it all in.
Bran perched on the stone rail. “A scrawny street kid. A throwaway human. Now you’ll go to war because of her.”
“Wars have been started for worse reasons.”
He stared at me. “I don’t understand.”
How do you explain humanity to someone who has no frame of reference? “It has to do with good and evil. You have to decide for yourself what they are. For me, evil is striving to an end without regard for the means.”
He shook his head. “Better to do a small wrong to prevent a big one.”
“How do you decide what is a ‘small’ wrong? Let’s say, you buy the safety of many with the life of a child. That child means everything to her parents. You devastated them. There is no greater wrong you can do to them. Why would that be a ‘small’ evil?”
“Because now more of you fools are going to die.”
“We fools volunteered to fight. We have free will. I fight to save Julie and to kill as many of those bastards as I can. They came into my house, they tried to kill me, and they crucified my kid. I want to punish them. I want that punishment to be so hard, so vicious, that the next scum who takes their place wets himself at the mere thought of trying to fight me.”
Slayer smoked in its sheath, sensing my anger. Normally I’d have to feed it, or its blade would become thin and brittle, but with the magic flowing this strong, the sword would last through the battle and then some.
I pointed to the yard. “The shapeshifters fight to take a stand against a threat and to avenge their dead Pack mates. They fight to protect their children, because without them there is no future. What do you fight for?”
He ruffled the wild nest of his hair. “I have no future anyway. I fight because I made a deal with Morrigan. Without mist, I’ll age and die.”
“Would aging be such a bad thing? Don’t you want a life? A real life?”
He sneered. “If I wanted a real life, I wouldn’t have asked to be a hero. When I die, I want to die strong, with a sword in my hand, sheathing it into the bodies of my enemies. That’s how a man should die.”
I sighed. “My father served as a warlord to a man of unequaled power. This man called my father ‘Voron,’ which means Raven, because death followed him. Voron had never been defeated with a blade. Had he remained as a warlord to lead the army he had built and trained, the world would be a very different place.”
“Is there a point to this tale?”
“He left it all behind for my sake.” And he did it all for a child not of his own blood.
“Then your father was a fool and now I know why you’re one.”
I closed my eyes. “There is no reasoning with you. Let me sleep.”
I heard him jump off the rail and land next to me, and then he poked my shoulder with his finger.
“I’m trying to understand.”
I opened my eyes. Explaining my moral code really wasn’t my forte. “Imagine you’re being chased by wolves. You’re running through the woods, no settlement in sight, and you come across a baby lying abandoned on the ground. Do you save the baby or do you leave him for the wolves?”
I saw the hesitation in his dark eyes. “I’d leave the little bastard,” he declared, a bit too loudly. “Would slow the wolves down.”