#lissa

Commission for ItLivi 2015

"Mom?" Jase repeats, looking from one to the other. There must be some kind of mistake. "What's going on?"

"Jasper," Mom says, her eyes not leaving the man at the door. "Go to your room."

"But—"

"Go!" she snaps, loud and sharp.

Startled into motion, Jase is already halfway up the stairs by the time he thinks to protest further. He stomps the rest of the way, righteous indignation flaring to overtake his worry. Mom almost never yells, and the way she looked at the stranger... who does this man think he is, marching in and upsetting her like that?

More importantly, who does Mom think he is?

There's only one way to find out. Jase continues his heavy steps down the hall and yanks his door open, but slams it shut without going inside. Instead, he creeps lightly back to the landing, staying close to the wall so the floor doesn't creak.

For a moment, it seems like he won't hear anything at all. Then the stranger's voice floats up from the kitchen below.

"So," he says, with the tone of someone trying to fill an awkward silence. "He's... what, twelve-ish?"

"Your brother is fourteen."

Mom sounds kind of weird—cautious, like she's delivering bad news to someone already in a nasty mood—but Jase barely even notices. Their little family has only ever been the two of them. He can barely wrap his mind around the thought that there could be anyone other than him and Mom. For this man, with his broad shoulders and Katolian armor, to be his brother? Mom may as well have said he was related to a dragon.

Judging by the long pause, the stranger is having a similar problem. "Did Dad know?" he finally asks.

"No," Mom replies. "Even I didn't know for sure, at the time."

"When you left."

"Yes."

The silence stretches long enough for the words to stop bouncing incomprehensibly around Jase's mind and settle into recognizable order. Mom hasn't always lived in Del Bar, so obviously she has to have left somewhere behind. This is the first time Jase has considered that she could also have left someone. He doesn't like the stranger's accusatory tone, but he still risks going down the first couple stairs, hoping to hear more.

"Never mind, I can't do this." There's a sound of a chair scraping across the stone floor. "I thought I could, but I can't."

"Soren, please—"

"I told myself for years that he must have done something awful to you—something so bad that you couldn't bear to even look at Claudia and me anymore. She never understood how that was possible, but I did." Jase scrambles back up the stairs and out of sight as the stranger's heavy footsteps move toward the door. "But this whole time... you've had no problem looking at his other child every single day, and you still never came back for us."

Mom's steps follow him. "What was I supposed to do, Soren?" she demands. "What exactly is it you think I should have done? Even if you didn't choose to stay with your father—he was high mage, with power and resources beyond anything I could dream of fighting. I couldn't—"

"How hard did you try?" the stranger cuts her off again, voice rising. "You never even wrote to us."

"I would have groveled at his feet for just a moment with you and Claudia!" Mom's practically shouting, the words shaky with emotion. "But if he'd gotten even the slightest hint about Jase... he took two of our children away from me, and I couldn't let him find out there was a third to take. I had no choice!"

Mom always said Jase's dad died before he was born. Jase stopped asking about him when he got old enough to see how much it hurt her. He was a complicated man, she once told him. But he would have loved you very much.

"Yeah," the stranger says, quiet and bitter with disappointment. "I've heard that one a lot."

The door doesn't slam, just opens and shuts with quiet finality.

Jase stands frozen, his back pressed to the wall. His heart is pounding, and he can't seem to breathe right—there's a sudden tightness in his chest that makes his eyes water, like he's been kicked in the stomach. He forces himself to move, clattering down the stairs in a haphazard slide and only barely remembering to hop over the scattered shards of broken dish at the bottom.

Mom sits at the kitchen table, face buried in her hands. Her shoulders shake with unrestrained sobs of agonized despair. Jase has never seen her cry before—not even once, in his whole life.

He bolts for the door, pausing only to yank on his boots before stumbling out into the snow with no coat or hat. He looks around wildly, squinting against the glare until he spots the dark shape of the stranger untethering his horse.

"Hey!" Jase yells, because he can't think of anything better. "Hey, you!"

The stranger doesn't turn around. He swings into the saddle without a word. Jase sucks in a deep breath, squeezing his hands into tight fists, and tries again: "Soren!"

His brother twists in the saddle to look back at him with red-rimmed eyes even bluer than Jase's own. For a moment Jase thinks he's going to just ride off without another word. Then he pulls off one thick glove, reaching for something beneath his cloak.

"Here," he says hoarsely, holding out a creased piece of paper. Jase scrambles forward to grab it. "Tell her she can stop worrying. He's dead."

The paper is older than it looks, carefully folded and re-folded over many years. Jase opens it slowly, mindful of how his hands are starting to shake as the cold sinks in. Four faces smile at him from the brittle, yellowed surface—a family portrait.

He recognizes Mom right away, though her face is smooth and carefree in a way he has never seen before. She holds a little girl in her arms, and a grinning boy stands in front of them with his hands planted proudly on his hips—Soren and his sister, Claudia. Their sister.

Next to Mom is a man with a neat beard and Jase's wide, dark eyebrows. One hand rests affectionately on Soren's shoulder, but his smile is more reserved, his gaze distant.

Jase swallows. His eyes burn, and he can't explain why. At least he can blame his uneven breaths on the shuddering cold. He folds the paper up and wordlessly offers it back.