The Architect and the Castle of Glass by Jade Mere

Author:Jade Mere [Mere, Jade]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-64080-262-9
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2018-03-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

“IF YOU keep scratching, it won’t heal,” Sornjia said.

Tahki scratched the clawmark on his chest. The wound had swollen and pushed up red skin in three lines. He sat in Sornjia’s room, if it could be called a room. The air tasted stale in the small space, like too much breath filled it. Sornjia didn’t complain, not about the rickety bed that moaned like a dying dog every time you shifted your weight, or the musty odor of boiled clams from downstairs, or the unsettling old lady noises Gale’s body produced on an all-seafood diet. But Sornjia was too much like their father. He took every unsavory situation as a humbling experience.

“So what are you going to do?” Sornjia said.

Tahki scratched at his wound. “I don’t know. If I knew, I wouldn’t have asked for your help.”

He had told Sornjia everything last night: the dark shape in his room, the water, the black gates, Zinc, the cat. Sornjia hadn’t ridiculed him, but that didn’t make Tahki feel any better. He wanted his brother to tell him he was being paranoid, that it was all in his head, that he should see a doctor. But Sornjia had listened, both sympathetic and patient, never once calling his sanity into question.

Sornjia sat beside him. “You won’t like what I have to say.”

“How do you know?”

“You want me to say it’s anxiety or something logical, something you can contain and control.”

“Maybe it is.”

Sornjia pointed at the marks on his chest. “Those don’t look like a manifestation of an overworked imagination.”

Tahki reached for his shirt and tugged it over his head. “Fine. What do you think happened?”

Sornjia curled his fingers into his palm. “I feel like a sparrow’s wings are fluttering just under my eyelids.”

“Sornjia.”

“I have a confession to make,” Sornjia said. “But you can’t be angry.”

“What kind of confession?”

Sornjia reached under his pillow and pulled out a handful of blue paper. Tahki stared at the paper. “It came a few days ago,” Sornjia said. “Gale brought back a stack of letters from Edgewater. I found it before she sorted through the pile.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The encounter with Dyraien might have been avoided if Sornjia had told him about the document papers.

“I couldn’t leave you alone,” Sornjia said. “The castle, I think it’s afraid of you.”

Tahki sat on his hands so he wouldn’t scratch. Though he should have been furious at Sornjia, it was nice to have someone to talk to, even if that someone spouted crazy theories.

“The castle isn’t alive,” Tahki said.

“Didn’t you always say you wanted to give your drawings life? That you treat architecture like a living, breathing thing?”

“It’s just an expression. Besides, I’m the victim here. That thing attacked me. Not the other way around.”

“How big did you say the cat was?”

“It was the size of a sandbull, only slender.”

“Right,” Sornjia said. “And you just happened to get away because you’re such a great fighter?”

Tahki frowned. “What do you mean?”

“If a creature that size wants to kill you, it will kill you.

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