Phoenix Found (Brothers of Fire #5)

Chapter 34

Chapter Thirty-Four

Everest glanced up at the knock on his study door. Even though he was grounded, there were still things he needed to attend to. Some of it being his university work. Gerrit had written a letter to get him an extension, and he was catching up with the online classes and textbook reading. He welcomed the distraction as it gave him something to do other than worry about the mess he’d created while fixing the older mess he’d made.

Gerrit stood in the doorway, holding an envelope. “This came for you.”

“You didn’t need to hand deliver.” Gerrit could’ve sent a servant. It was the way Gerrit stood there that made Everest drag all his attention away from the screen. Rebuilding their relationship was something they both needed to work on so they weren’t left with bruises in their next lives.

“I wanted to.” Gerrit walked in and placed the sealed envelope on the desk. “Your magic is returning.”

“It is.” While he doubted Gerrit was there to talk magic, he wasn’t sure what to say. He’d apologized for hurting the man who raised him, but it didn’t change the fact the wounds he’d inflicted with his words and actions were deep.

He was so tempted to say sorry again because he was, even though he’d do the same thing again, even knowing the outcome and the damage it would do to his magic and his mind. At least now he had a chance to heal.

“You haven’t argued against being grounded.”

Everest shook his head. “What would I do if I wasn’t?”

“And you haven’t asked for the binding to be broken.”

Everest closed his eyes. “It’s the only thing keeping me together…and I don’t mean metaphorically.”

Breaking the binding between him and Cadel may not kill him, but he’d unravel. And a phoenix descending into madness had the potential to destroy himself and many others, and that wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

“You’re not the boy I raised. He would’ve argued and attempted to sneak out at least a dozen times already. I’m coming to terms with the fact he died three years ago.”

The moment Everest unlocked the memories, the boy had been consumed by the person he needed to be to finish the job. “He did. And the person I was for those three years didn’t need his father.”

The person who he was now did.

He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, only that he was broken, and he didn’t want to hurt anyone else. Not Cadel, not his brothers.

“I don’t know who you are now.”

“Neither do I.” Kaine had forgiven him for not telling anyone about the operation and manipulating them all. Cadel had been there for the worst of it and had a fair understanding, but how long until his patience ran out and he expected Everest to snap out of it and be better? He didn’t want to screw up what they had. “But I need some help. I’m nineteen, Papa. For the first time in a long time, I don’t know everything, and I’m scared of messing up.”

Gerrit stood, and for a heartbeat, Everest expected him to walk out because he didn’t want to hear how sorry Everest was. A lump formed in his throat. He needed his father, and he wanted him back in his life. This dynamic was not ideal for either of them—he’d written extensively about that, all of which Gerrit had read—it was perhaps a chance to work on it and be better to each other than they had been in the past.

Then Gerrit walked around the desk and opened his arms. Everest stood and accepted the offered embrace. Gerrit would love him and hold him tight until he couldn’t breathe. And then they’d fight about it, the way they had for centuries, for millennia, because that was for how long Everest had been broken.

“Are you going to let someone love you?” Gerrit murmured.

“I’m trying.”

“Even though I don’t recognize you anymore, you are my child in this life.”

Everest nodded, his eyes stinging with tears. “All the things I hated about being your son?—”

“Was just another soul bruise.”

Quentin must have talked. Perhaps Cadel had as well. There was a small part of him that wanted to be furious that they’d discussed his memories with his brothers, but the rest of him was grateful because he couldn’t do this on his own. He’d spent far too many centuries trying and failing.

Gerrit held him tight. “It won’t be the same as before.”

“At least I’m aware of the problem.” He hadn’t expected the bruise to be revealed while saving Oliver. In saving one brother, he’d also saved himself.

“We all carry the weight of the past, Everest. And perhaps once, we were all aware of your great wound before it became forgotten, and we thought it was how you are in much the same way we thought Dalmon to be cold and driven without understanding the damage the loss of his mate caused. It is something we need to change. Our records will no longer be personal. And we’re going to create a master list of character traits and known wounds so we can be more aware of potential issues. And perhaps your discovery of how we used mind readers is something we can bring back.”

“I have been working with Quentin.” Mostly to make sure that none of the past flooded back in and sucked him under.

“I’m referring to working with him to pick up the thread of a soul bruise and looking at how to heal it,” Gerrit drew back and smiled at him. “Since you’ve been back, you seem so young and lost and yet somehow so old and exhausted.”

“I feel old and exhausted.” Though not as much as two weeks ago or even one week ago.

Gerrit brushed a tear off Everest’s cheek. “We will figure this out. And I want to get to know the man you are now and the one you will become because I’m sure that you will find a way through this. You have a good man at your side.”

Cadel would be at his side, as he was no longer his bodyguard.

He hadn’t been assigned a new one yet, but since he wasn’t going anywhere, it wasn’t pressing.

Gerrit stepped back. “You should read the letter as it came from Oliver.”

“Did you read it already?”

“No, as it is addressed to you. Dalmon handed it to me and said it came from him. He appears to be doing better than any of us expected.” He paused near the door. “Perhaps you and Cadel would have dinner with me and Malcolm?”

That was an invitation Everest didn’t want to turn down. “I would, and I’m sure I can convince Cadel.”

Gerrit smiled. “I’m sure you can. ”

He pulled the door closed as he left.

For a few heartbeats, Everest stared at the cream envelope on his desk, then he sat and picked it up. The paper was thick and embossed with a tree, and the envelope had been sealed with a wax stamp, also with the tree symbol.

Oliver seemed to have found the stationery from the last time he lived there.

Everest broke the seal with his thumbnail and pulled the letter out. It took a moment for his brain to register what he was seeing. He’d been expecting French written in looping cursive. Instead, it was written in English, and the letters were printed. Of course his handwriting had changed. He wasn’t the same person who’d written in his book all those years ago. He wasn’t the person whose thoughts and feelings Everest understood as well as his own after studying the book and the memories.

Dear Everest,

Or should I be calling you your royal highness? Brother seems too informal, since I don’t know you.

But you know me.

Or at least a version of me.

And he is the one you wanted to rescue. I’m sorry I’m not him, because he would know what to say to you. While I was truly terrified of you the day I was rescued, I am starting to understand our magic, as well as what you did and what you went through to find me, even though I didn’t realize I was missing.

I think you’re very brave, and I am grateful, even though it seems that I’m not .

Perhaps when I return to the castle, we can meet properly.

Your brother in fire

Oliver

Everest read the letter a second time, and the tightness and worry that Oliver hated him slipped away. He crushed the letter into a ball and brought the flames to his skin to consume the paper because it mentioned the word magic.

When it was nothing but ash, he dusted his hand off over the rubbish bin. The envelope he kept.

Old stationery. New names.

Another chance.