Thalien stepped into the tent soaked like a newborn, water cascading in heavy rivulets from the hem of his cloak. He aided a particularly stubborn pool of rainwater caught in the folds of the fabric by finally unbuckling the clasp and letting the heavy wool thud onto the grass.

"It’s coming down hard out there, isn’t it?" a voice drifted from the dimness of the tent’s interior.

"Brother," Thalien grunted with a sigh.

Arnold was sitting on the edge of his cot, a thick volume resting in the palm of his hand. His brother had always been the one for books when he was not on the field; where Thalien saw ink on parchment as a swirling nest of vipers, Arnold found a quiet sort of peace.

He looked the part of the elder, blessed son, all sharp, angular features and hair the color chestnut that under the sun would become sun-baked wheat that fell in soft waves around his soft and yet firm face. Thalien, by contrast, had inherited the family’s less fortunate traits: a face as long as a horse’s and a nose that had been set crooked years ago by their most dearest father.

"What are you reading?" Thalien asked, dropping into a vacant chair and thumping a small clay bottle onto the only table in the massive pavilion.

"The History of the Invasions," Arnold replied with a somber smile, closing the book to give his younger brother his full attention.

"Is it any good?" Thalien asked, prying the wax seal from the bottle and letting the sharp, fermented scent of cider fill the air.

"Master Locke has a flair for anecdotes, though he clearly holds the invaders in low regard," Arnold said. "He claims Aeron was such a drunkard that his veins held more wine than blood, and that Eanor the Misguided preferred to play the lady in bed for his wife’s amusement and pleasure."

"A fool who couldn’t see the edge of a ridge sounds like a man too deep in the bottle to me," Thalien muttered, pushing himself up to scavenge for cups.

"Some say it wasn’t the drink that killed him," Arnold noted quietly. "they instead point hands at his own brother who spooked the horse into a frenzy from the rear.Not like the reign of Vilorio was a kind one."

"Kinslaying, eh?" Thalien said, rummaging through a drawer at the back of the tent. "The oldest of all sins... ah, here they are." He pulled out two mismatched cups and returned to the table.

"I’m sorry that you had to trek through the deluge," Arnold murmured, reaching down to steady his prosthetic limb.

"It’s not as if I expected the rain to stop for my sake." Thalien sat and filled both cups to the brim. "Besides, I don’t mind a bit of water. It’s liberating, in a way, letting the rain wash you clean of all filth." He took a heavy gulp, the tart liquid stinging his throat. "Need a hand with that?"

"I can manage."

"Take your time," Thalien said, watching the strange contraption the Prince’s engineers had devised for his brother’s disability

It was a baffling piece of work. First, Arnold had to adjust a leather harness high on his thigh to provide a firm anchor. Then, four small steel branches had to be guided into place at the top of the stump.

Finally, the last was to slid a small steel pin through a hole in the wooden leg to lock the alignment.

And at last, with a grunt of effort, the elder brother stood, wobbling for a moment before settling into his seat.

"How does it feel?" Thalien asked.

"Uncomfortable," Arnold admitted, rubbing the point where the leather met skin. "The architect told me it takes time to find the balance. Apparently, this is the standard model for the veterans of the legions."

"I doubt there are many who survive losing a leg to actually wear the thing," Thalien muttered, pushing a full cup toward his brother.

Arnold thanked him and took a cautious sip. "There have been cases, more than you’d think..."

He trailed off, his gaze lingering on the flickering candle between them. "As much as I am thankful that you swam through a storm to watch me strap on a piece of oak, Thalien, I suspect you’re here to ask for something. Not that I’m against it, I still have a few favors to repay you."

A private, really private p smile touched Thalien’s lips as the cider began to warm his blood. "Nothing of the sort." He raised his cup in a mock toast. "I thought it only right that we celebrate the new Lord of Pardanum."

Arnold blinked, his face falling into a look of genuine bewilderment. "You knew?"

"A few birds whispered it. How long were you planning to keep it hidden in the dark?"

Arnold’s cheeks flushed a dull red. "Alpheo told me in private. It wasn’t meant to be camp gossip."

"Not as private as you’d think. A cup of wine with the right person close to the Prince was all the coin required." Thalien gave a low, dry chuckle. "Pardanum... a hell of a prize. Right in the center of the road the Eastern Romelian merchants have to take to reach the Prince’s lands. It’s a harsher road than the one Alpheo’s favorite Romelian candidate takes, but it’s lucrative. It seems he truly wanted to reward you for your sacrifice."

"It is a great reward, I admit," Arnold said, taking a slow sip of the cider. "Though perhaps not the most precious thing I’ve obtained through this war."

Thalien arched a brow. "Is that so? What else did you get?"

"The shame," Arnold said simply.

"The shame?"

"Yes. What else? We’ve finally washed it away. Can’t you see it? Our father’s accursed stigma is gone. We are ourselves now, in our own right."

Your own right brother....

"And all it took was a leg," Thalien said, raising his cup again.

"Indeed," Arnold mirrored the gesture, the wood of his prosthetic creaking as he shifted.

Both brothers emptied their cups in unison, the tart liquid fueling a sudden, heavy silence before Thalien refilled them.

"Some would say," Thalien began, his voice cracking from the shot of spirit, "that kinslaying is a more accursed thing than the shame of a father passed down to his sons."

Arnold’s hand froze mid-air. "What are you talking about?"

"Kinslaying, brother. We shall have to slay Lorens if we mean to stay alive. Don’t pretend you aren’t privy to the fact. Alpheo may have sent the noble princes’ army away this year, but what of three years from now? Or five? I know the road he’ll take then.

Those princes won’t remember this road fondly, especially being so close to the capital yet so distant from the power they craves."

Thalien took a heavy gulp of cider. "They’ll march through our lands. And at the head of a host, there will be our dearest brother, wearing a crown of Habadian gold and shouting: ’Look! Look at me! I am the Prince of Herculia! Bow to me!To me !To me!I am prince!’ Had Alpheo not been the one we bent our knees to first, either you would have died by Lorens’s hand or he by yours. The middle son always craves what belongs to the eldest. Unless you’re as foolish as a sheep, you must have known that since we were boys."

Arnold looked down into the amber depths of his cup, his face unreadable in the flickering candlelight. "Are you truly... all right with that? Killing our own brother?"

Thalien scoffed, the sound sharp and ugly. "You seemed firm enough when we spoke of it to the Prince. Don’t grow a conscience now that there’s silk on your walls and another title in your pocket. Lorens would have carved your heart out with that wooden leg of yours if it meant he could sit in your chair.

The next war won’t be on a border, Arnold, it will be in Herculia. Trust me on that. And when it comes, one of us will have to commit the ugliest sin the Gods ever dictated."

He took another long pull of the cider, his eyes dark. "The most merciful thing we can hope for is that the Weaver shears our dear brother’s thread before it comes to that. But it’s a fickle hope, I admit. Fate rarely does our dirty work for us."

Arnold didn’t look up. He traced the rim of his cup with a trembling finger. "I’m hesitant. I won’t lie to you. Every time I close my eyes and try to see a traitor, I just see the boy he was. We all came from the same womb. We all have the same blood. To spill it... it’’

A ghost of a smile, sad and distant, drifted across Arnold’s face. "Do you remember the storms back at the old keep? Not these grey, miserable rains, but the great summer cracks of thunder that shook the stone? Mother used to gather with us in her solar. She’d tell us the thunder was just the Warrior of Wrath beating his drum to keep the demons away so we could sleep."

He chuckled softly, he did not notice the hard look that was forming in his brother’s eyes. "She’d make us sit in a circle, holding hands. Lorens used to grip my hand so hard his knuckles went white.Where is that boy now?"

Arnold finally looked up, his eyes glassy in the firelight. "How do I move from holding his hand in the dark to putting a sword through his chest, Thalien? How do we go back to that solar after this?"

"What solar? I recall none of that," The words came out from the youngest. "And I have no desire to go back to any of it. Perhaps Mother was all sweetness and silk to the two of you, but for me? The honey turned to gall the moment I started growing hair on my balls and found out I wanted to use them rather than see them off to pray and sing in churches."

He tilted his head back, draining the cup in one long, desperate swallow until the wood was dry. When he lowered it, he found Arnold staring at him with a look of dawning, uncomfortable realization.

"Is that so?" Arnold whispered, his voice small against the drum of the rain. "I... I truly did not know."

"Of course you didn’t..you were being groomed as the heir, the golden boy following in Father’s shadow.

I was the one shoved into that god-cursed library, buried under mountains of books I wanted no part in reading. My eyes are half-fucked now , do you know?Scorched by years of midnight reading I was forced to do. Half the camp thinks me dull-witted because I have to stand a hand’s breadth from a man’s face just to see who the fuck I’m talking to. You don’t know a damn thing, Arnold. You remember Mother fondly? Good for you. I do not.’’

A thunder came from deep in the night. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"The days of us running through the gardens and climbing the orchard trees are all the childish things I may remember fondly. But that don’t mean a lick now Lorens is coming for our heads. Father looked at you with expectation. He looked at me as if I were a cockroach that had the audacity to survive his heel. And Mother?"

Thalien let out a short laugh. "You were her pride. Lorens was her joy. And I? I was the mistake that wouldn’t stop breathing. I was the after-thought she tried to blink away every time I entered the room.

The moment I refused to take the cloth, the moment I told her I wouldn’t spend my life whispering into the ear of some High Priest for the ’well-being’ of the family, or gods forbid become one,I fucking died in her eyes.

So don’t go speaking to me of hand-holding in the solar. That shield was never meant to cover me and it won’t cover him"

He slammed the empty cup onto the table, the wood groaning under the blow.

"You lost a leg for this new life, brother. Must it fall for me to see you live to see a bit more of it? So if you won’t sharpen the knife for Lorens, I’ll do it myself, and I won’t shed a single tear for the man. And the blood we share with each other is worth less than piss.

Perhaps that was always how things were meant to be. The youngest should always serve the oldest after all...the rule the gods set themselves. So...if you can’t do it, I shall take care of it then."