In the Shadow of the Truth by Maci Aurora

Author:Maci Aurora
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798989154333
Publisher: Mixed Plate Press

4

“You did something to me.”

Luc glanced at Nix over his shoulder as he unbuttoned his ruined shirt. “I told you I did.”

Nix narrowed his gaze.

“You should go bathe,” Luc told him, eyeing Nix’s tattered shirt and pants. His brother’s hair was an unruly mess on his head, though that wasn’t abnormal.

Luc shrugged out of the shirt, dropping it on the floor to dispose of later, and started on his pants, wishing he was climbing into the bath with Brinna instead. He imagined her naked body—a body he’d only experienced in a dream—slick with water, then took a deep breath to keep his semi hard-on from getting any harder.

“I know you did,” Nix snapped. “I just don’t believe you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because you definitely did something. I feel strange.”

“Alright. Tell me,” Luc said and left Nix behind in the bedroom as he went into the bathroom, where he started the shower and climbed underneath the spray. It felt so good, washing away the dirt from their trip through the hedge.

“Why would I tell you? You’re so good at using things against me. I don’t fucking forget things.”

Luc glanced at Nix, who was leaning against the doorframe as if holding it up with his shoulder. “I promise you, Nix, I haven’t done anything you wouldn’t have done for me.”

His brother growled, stalking into the room, and slumped against the counter. “I don’t know how I’m here.”

“Here? As in Sol? You just came with us from Sevens.”

Nix shook his head, looking down at his hands, his shadows uncharacteristically subdued, hidden. “How I’m not in the spell,” he said and looked up, catching Luc’s gaze through the glass. “Don’t say it.”

“What? That you’ve forgotten?” Guilt slammed into Luc so that he had to look away.

With his head in the water’s spray, Luc wished he could alleviate the heavy regret that held him under and made him feel like he was drowning. He had locked away Nix’s memories. It had seemed a kindness as opposed to severing them completely, but maybe the oracle had been right. Perhaps the lingering essence of the locked memories was battling against Nix’s awareness and the ramification would be dangerous.

“I don’t forget,” Nix snapped. “It’s not like forgetting. It’s like I remember being in the spell’s labyrinth. I remember drinking myself silly. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in Father’s office like I’ve been brought back from drowning, and I don’t know how that happened.”

“I told you,” Luc said, shutting off the shower. He grabbed a towel and dried the water from his skin and hair. “I locked the memories up. It was either that or let you die. Let Aurielle die.”

“Right. The god-yoke.” Nix said it like it was a joke.

Luc sighed, wrapping the towel around his waist. “Look. I get why you’re hesitant to trust what I’m telling you–”

“Hesitant?” Nix shouted; his shadows burst from him like a dark, angry cloud. “You trapped me in that spell. You and Poe tricked me, and I’m just supposed

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