Cain stood frozen, breath shallow and strangled in his chest, as Blake's full presence pressed down upon him like a collapsing tower to the peasants below.
The shadow his brother cast, which had haunted the coasts of half a world and now would all of them, fell over him, swallowing him whole.
Cain kept his gaze lowered, even the faintest tilt of Blake's head made him flinch.
He remembered too clearly the last time Blake had raised a hand to him when Cain had been so foolish, as to play him jester for the life of Shawani's family.
He waited for it now.He waited for the strike, for the crack of fist or the thud of palm.
Blake's shadow swelled as his arm lifted.
Cain braced, jaw tightening, heart hammering like a trapped bird against his ribs. That same shadow had stretched across the battlements of Khairo for months, had fallen on ships like a storm-front that brought only fire, had crushed a dozen men for every ten that lived to speak of it.
Yet no strike came.
