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you loved Scarlet. I loved her too—”
    Tristan’s eyes shot across the room and ran through Gabriel like a blade. “You do not know love as I know love.”
    Gabriel sighed and leaned back in the throne. “Are we going to be dramatic now? Maybe I shall call for some wine of my own and we can both wallow and aimlessly fight through our miserable drunkenness.”
    Tristan turned a hazy smile to him. “Ah, yes. You are the earl now. I forget this sometimes. Earl Archer .” Though he tried to pronounce the title carefully, it slurred on his lips.
    Tristan’s eyes went back to the wall and he reached above his head to lift a sword from its hook. He took another pull of wine before tossing the jug to the floor, a trickle of red liquid dripping from its spout.
    “I enjoy weapons.” Tristan turned the sword over in his loose hands. “They make me feel powerful. Capable.”
    Curse the stars, was he rambling now?
    “Yes, well, that particular weapon is an heirloom, so if you would be so kind as to replace it—“
    “Did you touch her?” Tristan’s lax body language stiffened, but his eyes stayed on the blade.
    “What?” Gabriel tried to sound exasperated, but his stomach tightened ever so slightly. This was not a conversation he wanted to have with a drunk Tristan—especially when that drunk Tristan was holding a sharp object.
    “Scarlet.” He ran a lazy finger down the edge of the sword. “Did you touch her?”
    Gabriel paused for a long moment. “Does it matter?”
    Tristan inhaled long and slow through his nostrils as he looked up at the ceiling. “I haven’t decided.”
    Rubbing the side of his face, Gabriel said, “You are drunk. Now is not the time… ”
    “Did she touch you?”
    Oh, for the love.
    “Tristan, we were engaged. And might I remind you, it was your idea for me to marry her.”
    “Yes.” Tristan shifted the sword to his other hand. “I believe I asked you to care for her. To protect her.”
    Gabriel moved uncomfortably in his seat.
    “Yet somehow,” Tristan continued, looking at the hilt of the blade as he squeezed the handle, “Scarlet ended up dead.”
    Tension filled the room.
    Tristan’s voice was deceptively soft as he looked at Gabriel. “You let your whore kill the woman I loved.”
    “I did not let Raven d o anything. Scarlet was my wife—”
    Just like that, Tristan was upon him, the sword pointed right at Gabriel’s throat and held by the very steady hand of a very broken man.
    Tristan’s voice was low and hard, his slur completely gone. “She was not your wife.” His eyes darkened. “She was not yours at all.”
    Gabriel did not breathe for fear the movement would bring his throat against the blade. He knew Tristan would never harm him, but he also knew what it felt like to lose a loved one.
    Just months ago, when word had come that Tristan had died in battle, Gabriel had been turned inside out and made hollow and fierce with the notion that he would never again see his brother. To lose his best friend—to lose a piece of his blood and soul—had been unfathomable. Tristan’s “death” had nearly destroyed Gabriel.
    And it seemed Scarlet’s death was wreaking the same havoc upon Tristan; breaking him down, emptying all he was, driving him to desperation.
    It was not Tristan who stood with a blade to Gabriel’s throat, but rather his broken heart. Gabriel understood this, even if Tristan did not.
    Calmly, slowly, Gabriel answered, “I did not touch her.”
    It was the truth and, although he knew it would not ease the ache in his brother’s chest, Gabriel knew it would at least remove the sword from his neck.
    Tristan paused. Then whipped away from Gabriel, dropping the sword to the ground as he started for the throne room doors.
    Gabriel ran a hand across his face. Whatever would he do with his wrecked, unstable brother with new, green eyes and a body that could magically heal itself—
    “Wait.” Gabriel called after Tristan, a memory hitting him. “Do