His eyes, that’s what it was. Not the scars of the sword, or even his strange way of talking. It was his eyes. She could see them clearly, re- flected in the odd light of the goblet, framed by the hard lined face, the thick heavy brows, the impossibly black hair. His eyes. They were black, black like Terrel’s, but …
She reached out and grabbed the goblet. His eyes, they were like weap- ons, spearing her, attacking everything they focused on, jabbing about, terrifying. She put the goblet down in front of her. It was bent, imprinted by his fingers when he had crushed it, unknowing. But Sarah did not see that. All she could see were those two black eyes.
Several days later Cade sat on a stone bench in the small courtyard behind Terrel’s house sharpening his sword. With one hand he steadied the blade while with the other he held the whetstone, slowly smoothing out the minor imperfections in the razor-sharp edge. The sunlight danced across the blade, hurting Cade’s eyes, but he ignored the discomfort. The slow, grating scrape of the whetstone on the blade punctuated his thoughts.
Things were a lot more complicated than they had appeared on the surface.
Scrape.
Terrel must have been much more involved in the PFLS than Sarah thought.
Scrape.
He had been killed, tortured because of this.
Scrape.
Somehow, Terrel had crossed someone in a major way.
Scrape.
Damn them all!
Cade threw the whetstone across the courtyard, against the far wall.
Damn. Why hadn’t he come to me?
And that was what kept eating at him, demanding an answer. Why hadn’t Terrel asked Cade for help? He knew what his younger brother was, what he did. Cade had always protected Terrel, but this time Terrel had chosen to do it on his own. And he’d paid the price. Whom had he crossed and how?