‘The way I see it, you’ve run out of options.’

Braph dabbed a cloth under Jonas’s bleeding nose, while Jonas pressed a wet cloth to his temple, trying to stifle the bruising around his eye.

His face hurt everywhere. His body hurt in multiple places, and like nothing he’d ever felt before. Sure, Aris had broken him, but he’d done a proper job of it and left Jonas barely conscious.

Braph had helped him to his feet and to sit in the shade of the stable, out of sight from Llew and Hisham.

‘This was for your own good.’ Braph dabbed at the corner of Jonas’s lips. ‘You needed to experience this. And I am only a one-armed Karan. Aris will be ten, twenty, a hundred times worse.’

‘He said he didn’t want to kill me.’ He was clutching at straws, but right now, he had little else.

‘He will when you come to kill him.’ Braph leaned back, examining his handiwork. ‘Mmm. Pretty.’

Jonas said nothing. Any response would be a win to Braph. His brother was enjoying this.

‘The world is suddenly running short on heroes. Right when we need them, too.’ Braph stood and took a step back, leaning so he could see Llew and Hisham. A smile touched his lips, and he gave a small nod. They were still occupied. ‘You and I both know what needs to be done. But you need to sell it to our resident Syaenuk.’

‘No.’ Jonas didn’t have to think before answering. Whatever was going to happen, Llew had to be kept out of it.

‘Good to hear you’ve prepared yourself for her death, then, because that’s what’s going to happen. Aris is going to keep pushing his way across Turhmos and he is going to wipe out each and every Aenuk, including your dear Llewella. And her mother.’

Jonas glared at Braph, trying to put as much threat and defiance into that look, but it was pointless. Braph had the upper hand now. And he was right.

‘Now,’ Braph knelt before him. ‘You can help me give us a fighting chance against Aris, or you can fight me the whole way, but this . . .’ Braph snatched up his sketchbook, brandishing it beneath Jonas’s nose. ‘This is happening.’

On the open page was a sketch of one of Braph’s magic devices, like a chunky bracelet, but with tubes and cables, modified for the shortened arm, and a place to fit a vial of Aenuk blood.

Jonas shook his head without conviction. What other option was there?

‘Normally, I’d make one for myself and let that be that. But I believe you are the better man to fight Aris, so I will make you one. Who knows? Maybe it would give you your Syakaran powers back, and then you’d be more powerful than me again.’ Braph looked a might miffed.

‘Reckon it’s about time you were the one to put a man down.’ Jonas met Braph’s eye. ‘You ever done that? Put a knife in a man and watched the light leave his eyes?’

Braph held his gaze a few moments and ran his tongue around his teeth. ‘I killed you, didn’t I? You think killing your own brother comes easy? I felt . . . something.’ He shifted his weight on his feet. ‘It won’t be easy seeing your old mentor off. Takes a certain kind of man to take a life and feel nothing. I don’t think you’re that kind of man. But I do think you’re the kind of man as can do what needs doing. This needs doing.’

True as it might be, Jonas was no longer equipped for it.

‘Do you think it would?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘Give me my powers back?’

‘Jonas.’ Braph’s voice held the same exasperation Jonas had heard from Aris many a time. ‘With this, you wouldn’t need them. You would be able to heal, run fast, lift incredibly heavy weights, and do . . . just about anything. Limited only by your imagination. You have one of those, right?’

It sounded too good to be true and, of course, there was a catch. ‘With Aenuk blood,’ he finished for his brother.

‘Llewella’s blood. You would need Llewella’s blood. Regular Aenuk blood would be near useless to you. You’re too weak.’

Jonas grimaced at the word. Never had it been used to apply to him.

‘Would it work for me? No one else has ever got it to work.’

‘It’ll work, because I believe that while you may no longer have your Syakaran powers, you are, in essence, still Karan. And, from my understanding, that is the one ingredient that has been missing in every other attempt.’

Jonas trailed his eyes over the sketch and tried to picture the device on his own arm, its tubes diving under his skin, connecting to his bloodstream, to feed Llew’s blood into it. He closed his eyes, remembering that sense of power that had come with her blood coursing through his veins. As a Syakaran, he was powerful. But Llew’s blood had added something. It had felt incredible. Addictive.

He opened his eyes, locked them with Braph’s. ‘No.’

Braph blinked slowly, sniffing dramatically. ‘Your loss. But you will help me build mine?’

So much of Jonas wanted to say ‘no’. He wanted there to be another option. But Braph had just beaten him in a brotherly scuffle. Aris would trample him like a bug.

He scrambled for alternatives. Llew, pregnant with his child was one. Somehow it seemed wrong to bring a child into existence for such a purpose. Even to save the world. What else was there? Who else was there?

‘Okay.’

Braph gripped his shoulder, giving him a tooth rattling shake. ‘Excellent. The Vastergaard Brothers at it again, eh?’ He gripped Jonas’s chin, lifting his head, tilting it one way then the other. ‘We’re going to have to come up with an excuse for this, though.’ He stood, holding out a hand to help Jonas to his feet. ‘I think it’s time we tested our prototypes.’

The exercises Hisham led Llew in were like dances; repetitive, fluid, rhythmic. Designed to train her muscles to respond without conscious thought. They started off slow, and with but a few moves. By mid-morning, though, Llew had a whole routine memorized, and Hisham had begun to offer resistance and unpredictability as he engaged her in mini not-quite-battles.

Llew being neither Karan nor a trained soldier, Hisham didn’t strike hard, or particularly fast. Instead, he would swing in slowly, giving Llew every opportunity to parry or step out of his way. Each time she succeeded, he came at her faster and with less warning, until she failed and they started over, counting her in to help her find the rhythm. The cows watched on with idle curiosity.

‘One . . . two . . . three . . . hmm.’

Llew stepped, blocked, twisted, and was about to surprise Hisham with an attack of her own, when he stopped, facing the corral. She followed his gaze to see Jonas and Braph practicing some sort of hand-to-hand combat, parading around each other, launching each other into the air, and stalking each other on the ground. They moved fast compared to Llew, but nothing like as fast as they had when Braph had used Llew’s power to boost his own. And had two arms.

In one smooth move Jonas flung out his left arm at Braph, a foot between them still, and something shot out from Jonas’s wrist. A stake of wood jutted from the under-side of his wrist. Ajnai wood, of course. Jonas cursed and shook his right arm more violently. And again, fist down. A twin stake shot out, pointed at the ground. Jonas raised his arm, shook it, and the stake disappeared. He shook his arm again. Nothing. Again. The stake shot out. He shook his left. Stake gone. He shook it again. Stake out.

Jonas relaxed his fighting stance and he and Braph stepped in close, examining the malfunctioning weapon on Jonas’s right wrist.

‘What is it?’ Llew asked.

‘Don’t know. But I hope they make me some.’

‘Me, too. I think.’ Llew pictured a fight with Aris, the Immortal convinced of his superiority, and perhaps being right. Up until the moment she surprised him with the hidden weapon.

Jonas and Braph moved back to the bench they’d been working at, and Hisham resumed his stifled strikes against Llew.

Merrid constructed a fulfilling dinner for their midday meal and Ard mustered his sheep, bringing the herd closer to extra feed for when the expected snow arrived. Llew helped him dish out the feed before heading in for dinner, finding a sense of satisfaction in watching the animals indulge in food she had provided.

Llew ran to catch up to Jonas. Was he walking with a bit of a limp? Surely not. She met him halfway up the cartway. He tried not to look at her, but he didn’t have to. His face was blotched with deepening bruises and smeared blood, and something was definitely up with his nose.

‘What in the—? Did Braph do that?’

Jonas hissed a laugh and brushed her hand away.

‘That bad, huh?’ she asked.

‘Bit tender,’ he conceded.

‘Then why’d you let him do it? And why doesn’t he look like that?’ She looked over her shoulder, where Braph walked several paces behind with Hisham.

‘Aris ain’t gonna go easy on me, is he?’ He snarled at her. His whole face twitched as he wrestled control over his temper. ‘Sorry.’

Was that really all? It didn’t ring true to Llew, but she couldn’t think of any reason Jonas would let Braph better him in a fight.

‘No, he’s not. But that’s no reason to get yourself beat up before you face him, is it? Don’t let Braph do it again.’

‘I won’t.’

‘What the fuck?’ Hisham was only slightly more eloquent than Llew when he caught up to them.

‘I gotta learn to take a hammerin’, don’t I? ’Cause that’s what Aris’ll give me.’

Hisham crooked an eyebrow but made no more comment until they reached the farmstead. ‘Better reset that nose,’ he said as they reached the door. ‘Can’t promise you’ll still be pretty.’

Jonas gave him a withering look.

Braph glanced at them as he splashed water on his face and rinsed his hand in the wash basin Merrid left out for the purpose, then he let himself into the kitchen and closed the door behind him, saying nothing. Ard skipped up onto the porch behind him, suddenly sprightly for his age. Seeing Jonas, his mouth dropped open a little, but he was far too focused on not leaving Braph alone with his wife to stop.

‘Probably best if you sit.’ Hisham directed Jonas to sit against the wall of the house as the door closed again. ‘Now, you’ve got to work with me, here.’ Hisham shuffled himself in front of Jonas.

Hisham grabbed the washcloth to wipe Jonas’s face free of blood, revealing the crooked cartilage and bone. With a murmured instruction to hold as still as possible, Hisham lined his thumbs up either side, counted down and applied pressure. Jonas merely inhaled a breath, the first time.

It took four attempts to satisfy Hisham, by the end of which Jonas was hurling curses and threats.

Despite an immense urge to look away through the entire procedure, Llew found she couldn’t. Each time Hisham pressed, she had to see if she would see Jonas’s nose move, and each time she didn’t. All she gained was an ache in her own nose. It looked a lot straighter when Hisham announced he’d done as much as he could, but the swelling made it impossible to tell how straight it would heal.

Llew was so engrossed in proceedings, she didn’t even think to fetch one of Braph’s syringes. But, of course, once Jonas’s nose was straightened, she could heal him. Hisham dashed around the back of the house for the instrument.

‘I still don’t understand what you were thinking. Why did you let him take it so far?’

‘Leave it, Llew.’ He plastered that faraway look on his face, the one that said he had nothing more to say on the matter, which told Llew there was plenty more that could be said on the matter. But with Hisham already on his way back, she left it.

She drew her blood and pumped it into Jonas’s arm, once, twice.

Jonas’s color improved, though there was nothing they could do about the bruising. At least it would get no worse.

‘Better?’ Hisham asked.

Jonas nodded.

‘Your ribs?’ Llew asked.

‘Better.’ Jonas pressed his side without flinching to illustrate.

‘Alright. Well, we’ve got a lunch to eat, and two farmers to explain this to.’ Hisham went to the wash bowl and started scrubbing the blood from his hands.

‘Ain’t nothin’ needs explainin’.’ Jonas pushed himself up to stand, brushing away Llew’s hovering arms. He was fine, of course. ‘We were trying out Braph’s new weapons, and we got a little carried away.’ He leaned over Hisham’s shoulder to peer in the tarnished outdoor mirror and grimaced at what he saw. ‘Ain’t tussled since we were kids. That’s all.’

He pushed the door open and disappeared inside, leaving Hisham and Llew to share dubious looks.