Read Online What Matters Most by Sasha L. Miller - Free Book Online

of the horse and cart so he could go collapse. Eat, and then collapse, because he was hungry enough to eat the entire pot of soup he knew was waiting for them.
    Raslin fell into step beside him, their jackets slung together over his arm. The snow was still falling around them, and there was no one outside. It was comfortable and easy, and Kyros fought a surge of homesickness. He was home, even if it was for the last time, even if he wasn't going to see Raslin again. Kyros couldn't ask Raslin to join him; Raslin had made it clear that he thought Kyros was stupid for going back.
    He could ask Raslin to go with his mother, but that would be tearing Raslin away from his sister and any children she might have, and for what? To be there for Kyros' mother when she heard that he'd been caught and executed? It wasn't as though Kyros thought he'd have the chance to visit Ailynn after she'd settled on the coast. Kyros sighed quietly, then glanced at Raslin, only to find Raslin was watching him.
    "You all right?" Raslin asked quietly, stopping a few feet from Ailynn's house.
    "I'm tired," Kyros admitted, more seriously than he'd meant to say it. He was tired, more than the physical work of the afternoon really accounted for. "Raslin."
    "Yeah?" Raslin asked. Kyros stared at him, wondering when Raslin had gotten so close; there was barely a foot of space between them.
    "Can I ask you to do something for me?" Kyros asked, keeping his voice low despite that there was no one around to hear them.
    "Ask away," Raslin said, his quick smile showing off his dimples briefly.
    "I need you to take care of my mother if anything happens,"
    Kyros said, wishing he didn't have to say it. Between the snow and Ailynn's insistence that she stay an extra week in Ourenville, however, the possibility was too strong that the council's men would catch up to him here, before he was able to get Ailynn to safety.
    "That was never in question," Raslin said, glancing briefly towards the house. "Ailynn is like a mother to me, Kyr. I wouldn't let anything happen to her."
    "Thank you," Kyros said quietly. His heart picked up its pace as he stared up at Raslin, stupidly wondering if that meant Raslin thought of him as a brother.
    "I'd do the same for you," Raslin said quietly, reaching out and running the side of his thumb over Kyros' cheek in a light caress. "All you have to do is ask."
    Kyros swallowed hard, managing a nod. Raslin smiled sadly, then abruptly reached up and brushed the snow that had settled on his head towards Kyros, grinning when Kyros stumbled back a step in surprise. "Come on, Ailynn will have dinner for us."
    "Right," Kyros said. He shook the snow from his hair, firmly biting back the words to ask Raslin to look after him, too. He couldn't ask that of Raslin. Kyros had gotten himself into this mess, and he'd get himself out, no matter how much he wanted to lean on someone else.

Part Two
    Raslin kept thinking he was dreaming, every morning he woke up with Kyros in his bed. It was a pleasant fantasy, believing for a few moments that Kyros had come home because he'd found he couldn't live without Raslin in his life.
    Unfortunately, their friendship had never been more than that, and it only took a moment for Raslin to give up on even pretending otherwise and climb from bed, leaving Kyros to sleep in.
    Kyros usually slept until midway through the morning, though he kept insisting that Raslin should wake him when he rose. Raslin snorted softly as he crossed the loft, his head ducked to keep from bashing it on the rafters. There was no need for Kyros to be dragged out of bed before the crack of dawn. He'd just insist on helping around the village and house, and there was no need for him to do that, either.
    He needed to rest. Kyros seemed to think they couldn't see the dark circles under Kyros' eyes or the way his clothes were loose, like he'd lost a great deal of weight recently. That Kyros was all muscle and bone only lent to the impression that he'd