It feels like it's been a hundred years since I've been here, and my heart breaks a little more when I turn the handle and swing open the door of my father's study. Mage lights trigger and illuminate the comforting disarray, and I still know my way around every surface but choose to stand just outside the doorway and look. The tears are hot on my cheeks, a seemingly endless supply, and another wave hits threatening to strangle me when the scent of old parchment and tiny hints of my father's cologne wrap around my senses.

Out of my peripheral I spot his robes hanging on the hook by the door, and know that if I were to bury my face in the fabric, I'd find the source of the cedar and rosewood scent. Greedily, I absorb everything with my eyes and note that it looks exactly as it did the day he died - the day I found him face down on his desk thinking he was simply sleeping off another night with his nose in books, ink still wet on his fingers from his fastidious note-taking.

How had it not changed?

Tairn's voice is quiet, solemn in its interruption. "Your brother approaches. Do you wish to remain alone? I can send him away."

"It's okay."

My ears catch Brennan's loping stride and I feel him stop directly behind me to take in the room just as I had. "She didn't touch it. She didn't burn it. Why?"

His voice strangles at the end and I know he's feeling the same as me.

"Because she wanted to keep him. It's the same reason that if you stopped by your room, you'd find all of your things gathering dust."

"Really?"

I shrug. "When she'd get called to Calldyr and I got left here alone to… study," I hear his scoff and ignore it, "I'd sneak into your room when I got lonely."

"To do what?"

"Oh, you know - touch all the things you wouldn't let me play with when I was a kid, find those books underneath your mattress and read them cover to cover."

Brennan groans and I know that his face has turned redder than his hair. "Please tell me that-that wasn't how you…how you learned anything."

A sobbing laugh bubbles up from my chest and I finally turn and fix tear-filled eyes on my older brother. "You sound just like Dad when he asked if I needed the birds and the bees talk at seventeen."

He winces and his eyes are wary. "Did you?"

"He was a year too late, but I didn't have the heart to tell him that. It still probably went better than him giving you the talk with that healer quadrant student hiding naked under your bed."

Brennan pushes past me with a growl, muttering, "fucking, Mira and her big mouth."

Wiping my cheeks and sighing past the nostalgic lump in my throat, I follow Brennan into the room. Irreverently, he drops into Dad's chair. The familiar sound of the pressed leather and the creak of the metal legs and wheels takes me right back to when I was fourteen years old, and I half expect to hear a soft order for a book or scroll that will send me scampering excitedly into the Archives.

"We have something like two hours before the end of it all. Why are you hiding in the Archives?" His question is one I've been asking myself, and I still don't have an answer, so I stay quiet. "Xaden's looking for you, we're officially out of planning and just…waiting."

I drag my fingers across book after book atop a dusty shelf while taking in the familiar names on the worn spines. "He knows how to find me."

"Through the dragons?"

"Brennan, don't tell me if you haven't actually figured it out yet."

I move to Dad's glass display case, the one I broke into time and time again to read rare books no matter where he'd hidden the key. It's locked tight. Shit. Where was the last place I'd found it nearly three years ago?

"You check the fourth book from the right on the third shelf, I'll check the gap in the bottom left desk drawer," I hear the grin in his voice and the groaning of the chair as he leans forward, and my hand automatically finds the correct book. I come up empty, and by his sigh, so does he.

We simultaneously turn to face the potted plant under the far windowsill, the one and only thing that Dad had ever managed to keep alive in here other than himself, and that familiar welling of pain leaks from the permanent wound in my heart to see it green and thriving. It's the only thing in the office that's been tended to or cleaned. Hell. Mom had watered this damn plant more often than she'd cooked me meals in those two years, but I can't blame her. I wouldn't have let it die either, but I never thought to even come down and check on it, and that brings another wave of sadness that washes over me from top to bottom.

Tairn and Xaden both respond this time, and I realize I've left my shields wide open.

"How's it going?" "Silver One, you should relax and rest. You will need it."

My overprotective males. I don't stop the grin but I do push that I'm fine down both bonds. I find that I'm still staring at the plant when Brennan puts a soil-covered brass key into my palm. I can't hide my surprise.

"She had to have found it. It's…been repotted. Why rehide it?"

Brennan stuffs his hands in his pockets before shrugging. "Why do you think the General does anything? This plant must have been a strategic necessity for her to keep it alive."

"Brennan," I can't hold in the grumble, and his response of an eyebrow lift makes me angrier. "One of these days you're going to have to forgive her."

"No I don't." I follow as he moves simply because of nervousness, his fingers rubbing a couple of the leaves as if checking to make sure it wasn't replaced with something fake.

"You don't have to like her, but she's our mother. She'll always love us and we'll always love her. Are you really not going to give her an inch?"

He rips a hand through his already tousled hair, and I feel the urge to nervously fidget with the end of my long braid in the same manner - just to do something to relieve the tension that this conversation always brings up between us. Every other time it's come to the surface, one or both of us have side-stepped and diverted to another subject. Why reopen old wounds, right?

"Just because of what she did to you I'd hate her forever, so, no. I'm not going to give the General an inch. She hasn't earned the right to have me call her mother. You either." He folds his arms over his chest in an attempt to look intimidating, but I see through it as trying to hold his truth from leaking out.

"He's choosing now to have this conversation?" Tairn is frustrated that Brennan is taking up precious time I'd wanted to spend trying to find my father's feathertail research, and I'm just mad and scared enough at what we face today to fight with my brother.

"We're all going to be dead by the end of the afternoon, yet you'd rather let this bullshit hang between you and the only parent you have left?"

"You will not believe such things," my Black morningstartail snarls.

"Back off, he needs to hear this and I feel like tearing into someone. Would you rather it be you?"

I feel my dragon's reluctant retreat and look up to see glowering amber eyes as Brennan decides to meet me head-on and not avoid the subject this time.

"His mistake." Sgaeyl has apparently taken Tairn's place, but she's willing to at least cheerlead. No surprise here as she's, according to Brennan himself, always hated him.

The teeth carved into the brass key bite into my palm as I squeeze my fist around the prized object, forgotten for the time being as I take a step forward.

"You do not get to hold your choice to never come home as a reason to hate the version of our mother that you were instrumental in creating."

Damn. That was much harsher than I'd planned, but there was no going back now. I've never seen his eyes flare to near rust-iron orange, almost the same color as Marbh's scales, and he slowly lowers his arms.

"You blame me for who the General became? Me?!"

"You left her, not the other way around."

His yell takes me off guard, and I realize he's a lot angrier than I'd noticed. "I died, Violet! I lost!"

I yell right back.

"You fucking liar! You chose!"

Brennan scowls and invades my space.

"I didn't choose to take the arrow to the chest. I didn't choose to lose Naolin," he holds his palm up, slapping the remnants of the rune with his free hand, "I didn't choose to be yanked back to life, nor did I have a choice of the side I found myself on. I, didn't, choose, Violet!"

My hands hit his chest and surprise is written on every line of his face that's answered by rage on mine when I shove him almost into a bookshelf. My voice is the pointed tip of a dagger against the silence of the Archives.

"You chose to stay away. You chose your anger at Mom over your love for Mira and me, and you chose to ignore everything happening in Navarre under the guise of regrowing a movement that doesn't even need you."

The pain shows like I physically slapped him in the face instead of verbally flaying my hand across his heart, and unlike the slight embarrassment that colored his cheeks earlier, it's fury that does so now.

"You weren't there, Violet! You have no idea what learning of her betrayal was like - that she'd sent me out there to kill and then to die for hundreds of years of lies."

Now it's my turn to be surprised, if only sarcastically. "Oh do explain that kind of betrayal to me, Brother."

The scoff is straight from his teenage years fighting with Mom and Dad in the living room. "You're not the only Sorrengail to wake up in Aretia with some burning fucking questions."

"How many answers did you get before you decided it was a-okay to throw your younger sisters off the same parapet? To let Mom shape us into everything you hate?"

He points into my face and I resist the urge to slap his hand away, though it's strong. "You don't get to blame me for that."

It's my turn to scoff, and there isn't any hint of humor in the hard laugh that escapes my throat. "The fuck I don't. You chose not to see how you never coming home changed her. How for the first time ever, when your name was read off the Death Roll, she walked off the dais. After you died? I didn't see her for six months."

"Lucky you," he growled. "It's not like she paid you any attention when she was actually there, Violet. It wouldn't have been much of a difference if she'd stuck around."

I see how much he regrets the words the moment he says them, but don't give him time to back down or diffuse the conversation. This one might come to blows. Hell, if it was Mira, we'd already be being pulled apart, so I'm not sure why I'm hesitating taking him to the floor just because he's my brother and not my sister.

"I didn't have the luxury of being her favorite child. I didn't even make the top three."

"There were only three of us." His obvious statement is so obvious that I feel Sgaeyl's eye roll across the blazing blue bond lit up in my Archives. Her annoyance is second only to mine, and I fight the urge to crunch his nose under my fist like Mira had months ago.

This whole 'use your words' thing has never really gotten me where I wanted - maybe I should take the Mira approach more often.

"Navarre always came first, and that's what happens when a high-ranking General has a family. I accepted that at four fucking years old, why can't you accept it at thirty?"

Then he gives up, "I don't have to listen to this bullshit," and barges past me heading toward the door.

Fuck that. I go for the throat.

"You know what? I've forgiven you for being Mom's favorite. I've forgiven you for not coming home. I've forgiven you for hiding the truth from Mira and me despite the ease with which you could have told us the truth at Basgiath." He's out the door, but I let my words follow him like a heart-seeking dagger. "But I'll never forgive you for also being Dad's favorite and leaving me to watch him die."

Everything is silent as what I've always seen as the truth rips out of me. It wasn't what I'd planned on saying. I was going to call him an unworthy coward despite the fact that I know it to be the opposite. But I also know that it's something he's always struggled with - being worthy of being favorite when he never wanted to be, being worthy of his dragon, being worthy of Naolin's sacrifice, all of it.

Would I have meant it? No.

Being his sister and using that knowledge for the best angle in which I could shatter his heart isn't something I'm proud of, but it is something I've just done because his footsteps come to an abrupt halt outside the doorway and all that's left is our ragged breathing within the oppressive silence of the Archives.

Shame doesn't stop me from continuing, my voice watery and furious.

"Dad was supposed to be mine. After," I try to swallow the lump in my throat but it just won't budge, and I feel the wet trails on my cheeks as I catch myself on the desk with my palms, the key clattering a few inches away. "I knew Mom wasn't ever going to spontaneously change and grow a heart for me, but Dad…Dad wasn't supposed to change. I don't know how to forgive you for that."

I don't know when he'd come back into the room and I have no clue how much time has passed as I shook in my anger leaning against our father's desk, but his strangled voice startles me. My heart hurts for laying all of that on him when I know he didn't deserve it.

"I keep telling myself that it wouldn't have made a difference. That my mending couldn't have saved him. That Mom was always going to throw you two off the parapet and that I'd be there to catch you both before you hit the ground. Then I failed with Mira as she became the spitting image of Lilith, and it killed me. But I could still save you. You, my brilliant little sister in the beating heart of Navarre as a Scribe with the morality to help, you'd be the secret to everything."

I realize I'm squeezing my eyes closed against the thrumming of blood against my temples and the roof of my mouth, but they open when I hear that squeak of leather and creak of metal. Our tear-blurred glances collide and I know I look just like he does, splotchy with red-rimmed, puffy eyes, and all the fight instantly leaves me.

"I almost came back, you know. Xaden had to literally fly to Aretia to keep me there."

I frown. "What? When?"

"When I got his letter a week before Conscription Day telling me about Mom calling in her deal with him to protect you in the rider's quadrant during your first year. My response was pretty cut and dry that I'd be flying to Basgiath and getting you the hell out of there before she had a chance to kill you. Begging him to keep you out of danger however he could until I got there."

My laugh is a near sobbing mess and I wipe at my nose with the back of my hand. "I kinda wish you had."

"What a fucking waste that would have been, Vi."

His gaze holds me captive as he folds his hands behind his head and reclines just like Dad did while watching me figure out one of his puzzles in record time. He looks…proud. Proud that I'd skewered his soul? Proud that I'd gone for the killing blow against my own fucking brother?

"We need this Violet Sorrengail," he tilts his head toward me, "more than that Violet Sorrengail." His eyes slide to behind me and I follow, landing on the cream-colored robes hanging to the side of the doorframe.

"I'm sorry, Little Flower."

The weight of the words land heavy on my shoulders and I slump, my head lowering as the tears land on the oak wood between my hands.

"I'm sorry, Brennan," I mumble.

A moment later his arms wrap around me and I cling to them just like I did when I was a little kid. His chin hits the top of my head and his thumbs rub soothing little circles on opposite sides of where he wrapped me up, and I feel the thudding beat of his heart against my back begin to calm me down. Minutes tick by, and I know we've patched things over, but I need him to understand what I've been asking and why.

"At least talk to her before we all die today."

He stays quiet and I feel his body tense, though he doesn't let me go. "Are you asking me to do it for you? Because I will if you need me to."

"Do it for you, Brennan. You just called her Mom instead of General. It'll be good for you."

He grumbles, mumbling a few words, though all I hear is, "...good for me," followed by feeling his, "ugh," from his chest. I pull away and turn, letting him see that it's not anger fueling my words, but compassion and understanding. With one hand palm flat against his chest, I keep going.

"Mom condemned everyone outside of Navarre because she believed it would keep us safe. I stood at Athebyne and heard you make the same choice she had but with worse reasoning. I watched while you condemned innocent Navarrian's because of the cruelty of their leadership. Your ideals let you be ruthless against Navarre in the same way hers drove ruthlessness against everyone outside of their wards."

He stays silent but doesn't retreat, and I see his eyes fade back to the gentle amber that had comforted me so many times throughout my childhood.

"I'm not telling you to rejoin her army, I'm telling you to talk to our mother before we all meet Malek in a couple of hours. That's all."

"I'll never be on the wrong side again, Violet," his chin quivers, and I move my hand from his chest to his cheek.

"No one knows that more than her." I give him a gentle slap and step back. "Now go away so I can use my last hour to find Dad's feathertail research for Jesinia."

He laughs and shakes his head, a tear slipping down his cheek. "Always trying to save the fucking world, aren't you?"

Without looking back I move toward the case with the key between my thumb and forefinger.

"Well, someone has to."

…

A/N: I wrote this whole damn thing and then realized that Brennan showed up at Basgiath the MORNING OF THE BATTLE. So…I had to invent a little bit of time. I always thought it weird that Violet seemed to recover so quickly finding Brennan alive while Mira held it against him for like 20 chapters. I kind of wanted a little more animosity between him and Violet initially just so they could overcome their issues and bond more, but hey. That's what fanfiction is for, right?