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They walk hand in hand up to the gates of Syngorn. It’s the first time Vex has walked with her sister’s small hand clutched in hers. On Velora’s right is nothing. Empty space as loud as a presence would be. The absence of someone who should be there.
The guards let them in immediately and within minutes Syldor and Devana are there, scooping Velora up into their arms and sobbing with relief. It takes a few minutes for them to even acknowledge Vex, the rest of the party standing a respectable distance back.
“What happened?” Syldor demands. Devana has Velora held tightly in her arms, still checking her over for injury.
“Vecna kidnapped her to hurt us. I brought her back.” He doesn’t need to know the rest. Velora doesn’t even remember, so all that matters is that Vex has returned her, safe and whole.
“You brought h-” Vex sees it the moment it happens. Syldor catching on the wording of her sentence, the singular I. She’s not a we anymore. She steels herself as his eyes flick over the party behind her. They’re missing two, but she knows who he’ll notice missing first. And she will not cry. Not in front of him.
“Where is your brother?” His wording makes her blood boil, despite the flicker of fear she sees in his eyes. Not ‘where’s my son?’ or even ‘where’s Vax?’ Even now, he refuses to claim them.
“He’s dead,” she spits, meaning to wound, but it’s Velora who lets out a sob against her mother’s shoulder.
“Oh sweetheart, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-” Devana clutches Velora protectively when Vex moves forward to comfort her, and Vex’s anger flares again, but before she can act on it, Syldor raises a shaking hand.
“Take Velora to the healers; make sure she’s all right. Vex’ahlia and I need to talk.” His voice is the calm, sturdy and authoritative tone she’s so used to loathing, but he’s staring at nothing, his face shocked and pale.
Vex waits until Velora and her mother are gone before she stares Syldor down again. “Do we?” she snarls. He looks up at her then, right into her eyes, with all the disbelieving grief of a father who has just learned his only son is dead.
“Please, just tell me what happened.” Her anger breaks. She can give him that, at least. He should know the selfless deeds and proud death of the son he refused to call his own.
“We should go somewhere private to talk.”
Syldor looks around, like he’s only now remembered that they’re still just inside the gate. “Yes, of course.”
He takes them back to his home, the place that still makes Vex’s skin crawl, and distractedly sets the rest of Vox Machina up with tea and cakes in the parlor before leading Vex to his study.
“He’s dead?” It’s barely a question, more of a plea for her to deny it, to say it was all a cruel joke. She briefly imagines Vax stepping out of the shadows and shouting, ‘boo!’ But he wouldn’t. He never had the cruel streak she has.
“Yes,” she says simply. It’s the closest to kindness she can manage right now.
And he breaks. He brings a hand to his face and lets out a shockingly ugly sob for such a polished man. Her cool detachment falters slightly as he drops himself into a chair and fumbles with a crystal decanter and glasses for a second before just pushing the whole thing towards her.
“How?” She takes the decanter--and Pelor help her, she’s still petty--takes a swig directly from it, daring him to say something.
“It’s a very long story,” she says softly. “Vax saved the world. We all did.”
She tells him, and for the first time in Vex’s life, her father listens. She tells him how she fell, and how Vax offered himself up instead. She tells how he became the Raven Queen’s champion, drowned in blood. She tells of Vax being turned to ash by a false god. How he came back cold and pale with a slow heart. And how, when Vecna was finally sealed away, he walked willingly into the Raven Queen’s arms for the last time.
When she finishes, Syldor stares at his hands for a long time. They’ve gone through nearly half the decanter together, passing it back and forth while Vex spoke, and despite her best efforts, cried. It’s incredibly strange, sharing a drink with her father. They’ve never done that before. Watching him cry and marvel at just a small portion of their lives.
“My son,” he says finally. He looks up at Vex, reaching for her hands, and she pulls away instinctively. For a second he looks pained, but it settles into something sadder.
“I should have done more.”
Vex laughs wetly. “Yes, you should have.”
“I mean it, Vex’ahlia. You are my children. And that should have come before anything else. I never should have let you feel like you--I never should have treated you like you were only as important to me as what you could do for--or to--my station. I should have given you love that was uncomplicated. Unconditional. But I didn’t. And now it’s too late.”
It is too late, Vex thinks. Vax is dead and she has spent her whole life without a father, as far as she’s concerned. She isn’t interested in trying to have one now. But this man, this horrible selfish man, is the only person left in the world who shares a certain part of Vax with her. The realization blindsides her.
No one else alive shares his blood. Not a single other soul in this world knew Vax as a child. She shares this with only him. And more importantly, she needs to share that, with someone. Vax was her twin and her best friend and she will always carry parts of him that no one else has, but where she can, she needs to not carry his memory alone.
“Remember when we were thirteen, and we stole a couple of horses and rode them through town?”
Syldor laughs.