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There are only so many times that you can fend off attempts on your life sent by your little sister before you grow tired of it.
She tried to kill you herself at first.
She was clever, and knew all sorts of tricks and techniques that would’ve been the end of anyone else. An energy thrower would’ve been fried with their own power, an elemental would’ve been burned up from the inside, and no amount of skill with a blade would mean anything at all. If she truly wanted someone dead then nothing could save them. Her magic of choice meant that she could do anything she liked with the right symbol in place, and nobody knew more symbols than her. It wasn’t impossible for people to defend themselves, but you didn’t think it could be much harder, either. Not to mention that the infatuation effect she kept activated at all times meant that the vast majority of people would never even bother to try.
But you are her brother, and her tricks don’t work on you.
You still love her. Of course you do. But if the situation calls for it you’re not afraid to defend yourself. To hurt her, if necessary.
You hope it’s never necessary.
All this over you leaving home?
No. Phrasing it like that makes it sound like you simply moved out, and while that is true, it’s also a gross oversimplification.
You left a cult.
Then one day she got out too, and not too long after that the war was over.
She stopped trying to kill you after that.
She stopped trying to kill you herself , that is.
But the attempts on your life have not stopped.
They never get anywhere close to killing you. Your life is never genuinely in danger. But these attempts invariably interrupt and ruin your day, and remind you of things that you’d rather forget.
This time you were at the opera, and discovered two assassins fighting over you in the hallway just outside the auditorium. One of them was trying to protect you. Not that you ever truly needed protecting. You killed the other one. Snapping her neck was easy and she never saw you coming. Nothing and no one can touch you, no matter how good they are at what they do.
You think the two assassins were friends. Or maybe they weren’t. Maybe they had a similar sort of relationship to the relationship you have with your sister.
Your sister who almost definitely sent that girl to kill you.
You don’t enjoy killing people, even in self defense.
Admittedly, that girl didn’t have a hope in hell of killing you, so maybe self defense is no defense at all. It was in defense of the girl who was protecting you, perhaps. But not yourself.
Never yourself.
You are stood at the entryway to the building in which your sister lives, and you are afraid.
You haven’t spoken to her since before she defected. You’ve seen her from a distance, across rooms, usually at the once-a-decade ball that every sorcerer besides you seems to deem the highlight of their social calendar. But no words have been exchanged.
Before today you’d assumed that the irregular attempts to kill you spoke loudly enough for her, and if she didn’t want you around then you weren’t going to force the issue.
It seems almost shallow to you that your theatre experience being interrupted is what finally pushed you to demand to speak with her again, but here you are.
You make a mental note to thank your protector from that night for tracking your sister down for you. You’d known which city she lived in, but hadn’t known her exact address, and your protector had been more than happy to give it to you when you asked if she knew it.
Apparently your sister had been making quite the name for herself. A private library, filled with all the rare texts that she could find, open to friends and closed to enemies.
If something were to happen to this building then all magical knowledge could easily be set back hundreds if not thousands of years. Keeping everything in one place like this is irresponsible, really.
But that’s not why you’re here.
You never stopped loving your sister. Her loving you back feels like a distant dream. But you’re fed up with her trying to kill you, and it’s time for it to stop.
You’re not as young as you once were and your patience has run out.
Your library has seen all sorts of colourful characters pass through.
Sanctuary officials tend to visit more than they probably should. Historians and assassins tend to visit in equal measure, although the former are intimidated by the latter and so will go out of their way to avoid them. Skulduggery drops in from time to time, and you pretend not to care about him while he pretends not to notice that you do while he tracks down whatever information he needs for whatever case he’s working on. The enchanted mortals take care of your every need.
You never expected your brother to walk in.
You can be wrong sometimes.
You smile at him as he walks towards you.
He doesn’t return the gesture.
“Bliss,” you say. “How wonderful it is to see you.”
He keeps his face neutral, not even a single flicker of emotion showing. He drags a chair over, places it in front of the sofa on which you’re sitting, and sits down. His stare is unwavering.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” you ask.
You’re half expecting him not to respond, to just keep staring at you.
You’re wrong again.
“You need to stop.”
It’s the first thing he’s said to you in over 300 years.
“Stop what?” you ask. There’s so much he could be referring to, and you don’t want to assume incorrectly. You’ve already been wrong twice today and are in no hurry to make it thrice.
“Trying to kill me,” he says. “It got old the moment the war ended. Surely you have something better to do with your time and energy.”
You spot a mortal approaching with the coffee that you’d told them to fetch, and waved them away.
You hadn’t been expecting to be confronted over this, but if it’s happening then you don’t want any interruptions.
You suppose this conversation has been a long time coming. You’d never consciously thought about its possibility before, but a small part of you always knew that it was inevitable.
You’re no fool. You know that there wasn't ever any chance of your brother falling to anyone you sent after him. Nobody is stronger than him. Anyone who chooses to stand against him is simply asking to lose, both the battle and often also their life. The people who accept the job do so at their own risk, and if they never return to collect their payment then it makes no difference to you.
You thought that perhaps one day one of them would get lucky. Then your brother wouldn’t be out there anymore, and you’d be at peace. But that was always a distant dream.
You kept trying just in case. If you gave up then the possibility of success would drop to zero, and you weren’t prepared to give up. But you were under no illusion that success was likely.
A far more likely outcome was a confrontation just like this.
You didn’t think that he’d kill you for it.
He’d willingly walked into your library.
If you weren’t a fool, then neither was he. You were siblings after all. He had to know that your library was brimming with sigils that you could activate faster than it took to take in a breath. All the strength in the world wouldn’t protect him from them. You have the advantage here, and you both know it. If you decide to kill him then he will die.
For that reason alone, you’re prepared to hear him out.
“I haven’t tried to kill you myself since the war ended.”
You’re prepared to hear him out, but maybe you’re not prepared to make it easy for him.
He schools his expression into one of neutrality. Whatever expression he’d been about to show, he apparently decided that showing it wasn’t a good idea. The resulting deliberately blank face tells you more than visible anger could have.
He’s not just angry, he’s upset. He’s hurting. He doesn’t know why you want him dead. He doesn’t understand, he just wants it to stop.
How dare he.
“I’m aware,” he says. “But I’ve lost count of the number of assassins you’ve sent my way. It’s not appreciated.”
“How is Avaunt?” you ask. You barely remember the girl’s name, but considering that your brother is sat in front of you and she went silent, you have a pretty good idea of what happened to her.
“Dead,” he says. His face shows no joy at that, and you don’t think he’s hiding any.
“A pity,” you say. “She showed promise.”
“And yet you sent her after me.”
“I did.”
“Don’t do that again.”
“Why not?” You idly pick some lint out from under a fingernail. You don’t look at him to see his reaction.
That doesn’t stop you from hearing it.
“Why not? Because I’m sick and tired of fending off people trying to kill me! There doesn’t have to be any other reason. I can’t count the number of times this has happened and I guarantee that neither can you.”
“I cannot,” you say. “That is, I cannot remember the number of times that I’ve sent someone to kill you, and I cannot stop sending them.”
You look back up at him.
His eyes are ablaze. They are the eyes of a man who is very, very powerful and very, very angry. A coward would have shrunk back and stood down at the sight of them.
You are not a coward.
“If you want me dead so badly, then why not just kill me now?”
He makes a good point. But you have your heart set on how his death should go, and you freely admit that you’re both stubborn and petty.
“You don’t deserve to die here,” you say. “Do not mistake me, if you provoke me here and now then you’ll be dying here and now. But you don’t deserve the luxury of dying in such a way that you know that it’s coming. I want your death to take you by surprise. I want your death to cut everything you had planned short. I want you to see a life ahead of you, only for it to be snatched away from you. And if you suffer due to constantly anticipating an attack, then even better.”
“You tried to kill me yourself at first.”
You shrug. “I was younger then,” you say. “Stupider. I realised after the war that this was a better way.”
Your brother shakes his head. “What did I ever do to you to make you hate me so much?”
You were never as good at hiding your emotions as your brother is.
You clench your fists tight, only barely stopping yourself from activating a sigil that would turn him to ice.
“You know what you did.”
“I promise that I do not.”
“Think about it,” you say. “When did I first try to kill you?”
Your brother doesn’t respond.
“It wasn’t long after you left home.” You look him dead in the eyes, knowing that he’ll see the cold truth in them. The fire in his dims a little, but doesn’t fade entirely. “You took your strength and you walked away, just when our family needed you the most.”
“I saw the Church of the Faceless as the cult it was and I got out.” You can hear the disbelief in his voice. “You hate me because of that?”
“I hate you because you left me there.”
“I tried to take you with me!”
“You told me, in the middle of the night, that everything we knew was a lie and that we needed to leave right then.”
“Was I wrong?”
“Can you blame me for saying no?” You unclench your fists and grip the arms of your chair. “You were gone the next morning, and a week later the war kicked off in earnest. You left me alone.”
Your brother lets out a bitter laugh. “You were hardly alone. You had all the rest of our family with you. I was alone. In one night I’d made enemies of everyone I’d ever known, and none of their enemies knew that I could be trusted.”
“I truly weep for you,” you say. “Meanwhile I woke up to find that my big brother, the one who was supposed to look out for me and protect me, had abandoned me.”
“I tried to get you to-”
“You didn’t try hard enough!” You take a deep breath. “I was young. I was still loyal to our family, I was still loyal to the Church, and I still believed that the Faceless Ones would save us. You were right, but you left me there after a single conversation about it. I didn’t have anyone I could rely on after that.”
And then your brother does something that you didn’t expect.
The fire in his eyes disappears completely.
And he speaks.
“I’m sorry.”
Your sister wasn’t a child when you left, but she was young.
You both were.
Before you left, you were closest with each other. Neither of you had any other close friends. You were the one who encouraged her interest in sigils, and she was the one who got excited about whatever feat of strength you’d managed to achieve that day.
The realisation that the Faceless Ones would sooner destroy the world than save it, and by extension would sooner kill everyone than help them, hadn’t been fast, but the decision to leave once that realisation had solidified in your mind had been fast. You’d never been so sure of something so quickly, and you’ve never experienced it since. The only thing that you’d been able to think about was that you couldn’t stay there any longer. Not with a war brewing. Not with how many people were going to die because of it. Not when you knew that you could do something to help the good guys.
But your sister is right. You offered for her to come with you, but you didn’t do a good enough job of convincing her of the truth. She told you no once and you decided that there was nothing to be done. You didn’t even say goodbye.
Her anger is deserved. Her hatred is understandable.
“I’m sorry.”
She blinks.
Finally, you’ve taken her by surprise.
“I know it doesn’t fix anything,” you say, “but I am. I shouldn’t have left you there. I should’ve fought harder to convince you. Or I suppose I could’ve just dragged you out with me, but I think you would’ve hated me even more if I’d done that.”
There’s a moment of silence before she says, “Yes, maybe I would have.”
“If I were to try being your brother again, how would that make you feel?”
A small frown flits across your sister’s face. “It’s been 300 years since we last spoke.”
“It has,” you say. “And neither of us can get those years back. But we still have the rest of our lives to stop acting like idiots.”
She stares at you for a few seconds. Then she stands and walks over to a window. She looks out of it, turning her back on you.
You don’t move out of your chair.
“If only it were that simple.”
“I know it’s not simple,” you say. And you do know. Abandonment, 300 years of estrangement, and multiple assassination attempts aren’t things that can just go away because you want them to. “But I’m willing to try.” You stand. “Are you?”
Her reply is said so softly you almost think you imagined it.
“I don’t know.”
Before she can respond, she turns and walks back over to you.
“You can leave now,” she says. “I’ll think over what you’ve said and I’ll be in touch. Goodbye.”
You decide not to push your luck and leave.
You don’t look back at her as you walk out the door, and you don’t hesitate as you walk out the building.
You don’t know how things will progress from here.
It’s been over 300 years since you last spoke to your sister, after all. However she would’ve acted then can’t be used as a blueprint for how she’ll act now. She’s your sister and you love her, but she’s also a stranger.
You suppose if she sends someone else to kill you, you’ll have your answer.
But you’re cautiously optimistic. She seemed genuinely surprised at your apology, and perhaps she’ll take it to heart.
You hope she’ll take it to heart.
You hope that one day, maybe even one day soon, the two of you will be able to stand alongside one another again.