I find his silhouette leaning against a tree, and it takes everything in me not to scoff. He doesn't even care about someone catching him; he probably won't even get in trouble for it. You know, princely privilege.
I slink over, just a couple of feet away. When I can tell I'm out of sight to anyone over the wall, I sigh. "You know, for someone who asked for a secret meeting, you aren't hidden very well."
Halden barely flinches. The way his eyes flash as they come to look at me, I almost recoil at how identical they are to Alic's. Unlike our brother's, though, Halden's gaze doesn't hold any malice. Just…resignation.
"I'm not here to hide," he says finally, his shoulders dropping. "I'm here to talk."
"You can do both," I reply in a hushed tone, arching a brow. "I could be killed for this, you know."
Halden just waves his hand. "Nonsense. We won't get caught."
My expression sours, but it's replaced with shock, alarm, as his fingers curl around my wrist and pull me into a fierce hug, stealing my breath from me. He's warm, steady. Unfamiliar.
Halden has never hugged me before.
I don't even know what to do with myself. All I can do for a few extended moments is stand there, arms by my sides whilst his chin hovers above my head. What the hell is he doing? Am I about to be killed? Is this some elaborate plot to keep me still while someone else aims a crossbow at me?
No, I think. Halden is a douche, but he's not a monster. Not like our brother.
Tentatively, I allow my arms to wind around his middle. It feels foreign, kind of wrong, but I won't deny the creeping sentimentality that I feel. My brother is giving me a hug. That's weird, but nice, too.
"Are you okay?" I whisper, my words slightly muffled by the way my face is pressed into his shirt. He can't be one-hundered percent okay, because a completely-fine Halden would never try to hug me.
To my surprise, though, he murmurs, "Fine. I just miss familiar faces."
My face? My brows shoot to my hairline.
"How are you?" he asks, his voice shockingly gentle. To my knowledge, he only talks to Cam like that. "I wanted to talk after your Threshing, but they wouldn't let me cross over."
"No one from the outside is allowed in my quadrant," I remind him. "But I'm okay, I guess. I'm alive."
Halden nods, and I'm filled with a sickening sense of guilt. I'm only allowed to say I'm alive because Alic isn't. My brothers were always closer than me and Halden will ever be — they were twins, after all. That kind of bond doesn't fracture after meeting Malek.
"That's good enough." He releases me, but the darkness of his irises is enough to tell me he did it reluctantly, so as not to drive me off. "I've already lost Alic and Mother. I don't need you gone, too."
My heart shatters. Mother.
He doesn't know their deaths are both my fault.
I swallow the tides of grief and force myself to adjust my posture. "Odd. You didn't seem to have many qualms about me being sent to my death."
His jaw clenches. I guess I've struck a nerve.
"I couldn't do anything about that," he mutters. "Father was adamant. Had I known the reason earlier, I would have fought harder."
I don't believe that, not for a second. It must show on my face, because Halden's glare sharpens. "I would have. Believe it or not, Cosette, I've never hated you."
"You've never exactly been fond of me, either," I point out, crossing my arms over my chest. In the low light I've started to exude, the movement emphasizes my XO patch. "So excuse me if I find the sentiment a little off-putting."
I don't feel bad for pushing his temper — not anymore. If he really cares the way he says he does, he'll find a way to put a cap on blowing up in my face. Honestly, I'm surprised he's lasted for so long without being too snippy.
"…Fair," he concedes, tilting his head. "I've not been the best to you, I'll admit. You're still my little sister, though, and I'm more than allowed to care about your wellbeing."
I sit with the thought for a few moments. Halden…cares. About me. Supposedly, at least.
What am I supposed to do with that information?
I take a few beats to process that and then dip my chin. "I'm…fine. As good as I can be in a place like this."
"You've been dealing with it all alone." There's no room for questions in that tone. "No one knows it's your mother and brother who died."
Not true, technically. Xaden knows. Dain knows. Freya knows. Garrick knows, and has been with me the entire time. Fuck, he knows everything.
Halden won't know that, though. If he knew I was in love with a child of the rebellion, he'd have my ass.
"I'm fine," I repeat, a tad rougher. "That's not the worst thing that's happened to me here. People die all the time." I can say that about Alic and keep the meaning the same. I can't say that about the queen; no one in this quadrant dies of grief.
"People," Halden snaps, "aren't the same as Mother."
My fingers curl into fists, and suddenly, I'm trying my best to hold back tears. "I know," I bite out. "I'm just saying I'm used to it. I mean that in both ways.
Both ways. One, since I've watched people in my quadrant die from the moment I crossed the parapet, and two, since this is not the first time my mother has died.
At that, Halden stiffens, and next thing I know, I'm being pulled back into him. This time, though, I can't tell if it's for my sake or for his own.
"I should've come to find you sooner," he mutters. "Not even generals can refuse royalty."
"Dragons bow to no one," I remind him. "In the off-chance you were caught, I'd only have one brother left alive."
Silence follows. Then, "That's actually what I wanted to talk about."
I pull back as he reaches into the pocket of his dark blue uniform and retrieves a paper folded into the smallest square imaginable. "We've finally been allowed mailing privileges," he explains. "I figured you wouldn't risk your anonymity, so I took the liberty of asking Cam to send an extra letter."
My breathing stutters. For a second, I don't know if he's faking me out or not, but judging the way he holds the paper out to me, I know he's being genuine.
With slightly shaking hands, I reach out and take it from him. I stare down at it with wide eyes and hesitantly open it, and like my resolve's been pierced, tears begin to fall at the sight of Cam's scrawling handwriting.
This time, I'm the one grabbing Halden to hug him fiercely.
"Thank you," I choke, holding onto him like a damned lifeline. "Thank you."
His fingers card through my hair, shorter since I've re-hacked it all off, gently. "Don't thank me," he chides. "We'll need each other now more than ever. I figured you missed him, anyway."
I do. Gods, I miss my little brother so badly that I can barely think about him without pain clawing through me. It's hard; we've never been separated for so long, and with all of the grief that's spread through our family like a disease, I know he needs a shoulder to cry on more than ever.
That responsibility doesn't lie with me anymore. Not from here.
I take a strangled breath and hold onto my brother for a few moments. "Do you think we can meet up again, so I can write him something back?"
"Oh, so now you don't care about getting caught?" he asks dryly. When my face falls, he just chuckles. "Yes, Cosette. Thursdays are fine. That's when everyone is preparing for their weekend trips, anyway, and no one is in the woods."
I nod and step back, carefully sliding the letter into my flight jacket. "Next week?"
"Next week." He blinks, as if noticing for the first time: "Are you…glowing?"
I stare down at my hands and laugh awkwardly. "Yeah, it comes with my signet. I wield light."
Halden's eyes glow with interest, but I shut it down immediately. "No. We could still get found out."
He mutters something under his breath but relents nonetheless. "I take it you're leaving?" I dip my head. "Fine." He grabs for my hand one last time and squeezes it gently. "Be safe, little sister. Don't get into too much trouble."
The way he smiles gently, I know he means it. That doesn't mean I deserve the rare kindness, though.
Halden still does not know anything about me, nor how I've changed within the past year.
And he certainly does not know that the one who murdered our brother in the Threshing woods was me.
