A Crow's End (Slow Updates)

⚔️ Chapter Eight ⚔️

"What do you mean?"

For the second time that day, Edwin was a copy of his father, and for the second time that day, Robin hated himself for noticing it.

Robin stole a glance to Andragoras before he spoke, hoping the captain would give more details than he could. He got nothing in return from the man, who still remained silent and still as a stone since news of the queen's illness.

"I mean, that out of the four guards that came with us, the one that made it back couldn't give us information."

"Or wouldn't." Edwin slid a hand through his hair. "Robin, it may occur to you that he simply didn't want to tell the truth." A slight twinge flicked at his lips and he motioned toward Andragoras. "No offense to either of you, of course, but sometimes people just don't want to give information no matter how much they're threatened or bartered with."

A rising knot formed in Robin's gut, one he'd felt plenty of times before, yet rarely towards his brother. This knot threatened to bubble over with sharp truths and anger, with demands to be listened to, with rage.

He shoved it back down. It could come out any other time-- just not now. Not towards Edwin.

"You're not listening, Ed." That same anger wormed its way into his voice. "He was afraid of it only when we spoke of home, no other time. Besides, you know what happened when we got here."

"I know two different stories, you mean. Yours and Eudes."

"He chopped off his tongue."

"And you let him go."

"Because he was innocent!"

"You literally just told me he tried to kill you!" Edwin's voice rang out through the garden, high and loud enough that one of Andragoras' stationed guards turned in their direction. "That," he continued, voice softer, "is the very definition of not innocent."

"I wasn't talking about that part. I meant the knife--"

"The knife? What knife, Robin, when? When he tried to use it against you the first time or second time?"

Robin's fists clenched so tightly his fingernails bit into skin. The heat he tried to hold back only rose to his cheeks, his throat.

He forced himself to sound calm when he spoke. The wavering words didn't help him. "There wasn't a second time, that's what I'm trying to tell you."

Everyone he commanded or traveled with would have gotten the hint. Heard the anger. Known to back down.

Why his brother didn't in that moment was a question for the ages.

"So he only attacked one of those times then?"

The fire turned to ice.

Robin's hand slammed into the closest thing he could-- in this case through -- a bush of flowers. An attack of rustling followed, brought with a sharp, bitter stinging to his skin.

"If you would shut the hell up for a moment and let me finish my damn story you wouldn't have to waste your breath on pointless questions."

As soon as the words left his mouth, Robin's stomach dropped. A bottomless black hole tugged at his gut, threatening to drag him down with it. That was Ed, not a guard he met minutes before. His brother, not soldier.

As the sharp frustration bowled into the younger man, Edwin's eyes changed. It wasn't sudden or drastic, as Robin's has been, but slow. Silent. They grew wider, the whites of his eyes brightening only because his eyebrows raised, but there was a darkness to them Robin couldn't have anticipated. Edwin stepped back a few feet, ending with one leg slightly behind the other, his hands raised to his chest in surrender.