The Azimar Archives Book One- The Book of Death

Silvana

SIlvana watched her brother from the corner of her eye as he finished up a bit of mending on one of Hasani's shirts. He sat in the hard backed chair at Hasani's desk, elbows propped on his knees, head hanging low. He looked almost repentant.

As he should.

Silvana sat across the room in her favorite cushioned seat, work spread over her lap. She tried desperately to seem unconcerned by his presence, by his change in demeanor, but she couldn't help but glance his way every handful of seconds.

"Silvana—," Ajax started.

"Not yet." Her words had an angry bite to them, and she thought she might have seen Ajax recoil slightly. She considered softening her words, perhaps apologizing, but didn't.

After his last visit, no one could blame me for a little anger.

The Matriarch had been hung over a week before, and this was Ajax's second visit to her. The first tine he'd come was only hours after the hanging, and he had been drunk. Ajax had raved, mostly incoherently, and had seemed simultaneously furious and elated. He'd cursed the new commander, smashed the mirror Silvana had finally returned to the mantle, and had insisted that the Matriarch was still alive. And finally, after a good half hour that felt more like a week, he had collapsed into a drunken sleep on the floor in front of the fireplace.

When Silvana awoke the next morning, Ajax had been gone, and a note had been penned in his immaculate script.

I'll be back.

We need to talk about Nevina.

Silvana had dared to hope that sobering up had given him the clarity to admit that the Matriarch was dead. But when he knocked on her door not an hour ago, the first words out of this mouth when she opened it had been a rushed apology, followed by, "Nevina is alive, and I have to find her."

Silvana made her last stitches slowly, counting out a quiet second or two between each. Finally, she knotted the thread and bit it off. "There. All done. Now what did you want to talk about, Ajax?"

Ajax sounded bitter. "You know what I want to discuss. Nevina is—"

"Nevina is alive, yes, yes," Silvana snapped. "Anything else you care to discuss? Dragons have been spotted along the southern coasts, perhaps? The Great Ones have returned in a shower of light and thunder?"

"Silvana—"

"We saw her hang, Ajax," Silvana pleaded. "I know you cared for her, I'm no fool. But she confessed to murdering Areanath, and we watched her die."

"I know, I know." He growled, standing to pace in front of her. "But you weren't close enough to see her face. Those weren't her eyes that I saw."

Silvana snorted. "You've seen Nevina's eyes, then?"

Ajax's step faltered slightly, almost imperceptibly. But she caught it. "Yes."

"Through her veil?"

"Yes." His voice was quiet, almost somber.

"Ajax—"

"She showed me her face." Ajax halted, turning to face her.

Silvana looked up. "What?"

"Before she disappeared, she took off her veil for me."

Silvana's voice caught for a second, and she could only stare at her brother. A Coven sister, removing her veil? It was nearly unheard of...

Ajax knelt beside her, taking one of he her hands in his own. Finally, Silvana choked out, "Why?"

"Because she loves me. And I love her. And because it was a promise. That she would come back."