LXXXVII
The night's sky hesitated to fall as the excited flurry of soldiers cast their avid gazes onto the scene before them. But, their jeers echoed far away to James, a silent assault on the ears. Instead, Fabian was the only object James' numb brain could focus on.
James was looking into the eyes of death, seeing his image reflected in them inside his brother's sickly familiar green irises. The colour of Spring. He might die yet he felt no urgency. His heart was not on the battlefield. It was elsewhere.
Eris was in his grip, held at the ready and even she felt subdued compared to the bright sadistic cheering around them. All James wanted was to get close to his brother but he was chained by the ankles.
It had been almost sixteen years since he'd last seen this boy and he didn't even have the opportunity to talk to properly the man.
Even though nothing good could come of it, James was winded with want, knowing he'd never get the chance again.
Fabian was going to die, either by his hand or by the soldiers.
But James' potential death felt trivial in comparison to the opportunity he was watching slip through his scabbed printless fingers like sand.
Like savages around a fire, the soldiers demanded, "Kill him! Kill him!" hungry for a sacrifice.
James' grip tightened. His heart panged at the fear on his brother's face. But, he also burned at the affront that Fabian would show such a display after everything he'd done. James couldn't forgive him.
James tried but couldn't take that first step forward, unable to attack. Turning to look at Alex's tense worry and resignation, James recognised that his lover knew it too. Those eyes quickly widened and James lurched back, narrowly missing a blade.
Ah, James thought, it's like that.
He hadn't been capable of disappointment. It was a quiet acceptance, and it soaked bone-deep. They both hadn't changed one bit.
James retaliated, striking Eris through the air, wrists momentarily weakened with the vibrating clang against Fabian's block.
It would've hurt them both. Fabian was quick to slide his sword away, the sharp edges on both grating, and hammering down right for the top of James' head.
Heart flinching, James had to block the blow with both hands, supporting the end of his blade with a flattened palm.
It seared his skin but Eris wouldn't eat him. Only him.
Fabian shouted in frustration. "Why you?" he demanded. "Why did it pick you?"
He was talking about Eris, James realised.
He pushed back, hand clenched over Eris' edges, the inside creases of his fingers cut. Fabian stumbled back from the force, chest heaving through his breastplate.
Although tired, Fabian's condition was far superior to James'. James' arms trembled from a night of war, the splintering fibres in his muscles screaming out, his body not entirely compliant. It was a disadvantage that could prove fatal.
When James had been a boy, he'd often lost in their spars.
Fabian had been bigger, stronger, and had lived longer to train and hone his skills.
But that didn't mean James never won, even if it wasn't often.
For most of his life, he had trained at a disadvantage.
Whether it had been with Fabian or his mentor, he had always been the smaller and weaker one.
Now, though, as James stood across from his brother, James was hurt by the realisation that Fabian was shorter than him.
Fabian had the heavier armour but James had the heavier sword.
As Fabian tried to strike again, his movements were sluggish.
It seemed that any move his brother made, James could parry confidently.
Fabian, James realised, hadn't been used to wearing the weight on his shoulders and it made him slower than he should've been.
That didn't make the fight easy.
"It should've picked me!" Fabian roared, preceding a succession of reckless attacks that had James reeling backwards, wincing as his body ached. The violent movement, finally, knocked the crown off Fabian's head and it rolled on the ground.
"I needed her more than you," James spat.
"Bullshit! You stole it from me— that's all you've ever done!"
"Me?" James scoffed in disbelief.
Fabian attacked, again, but James parried and countered with aggression this time. Just as Fabian seized the opportunity and struck James' armoured abdomen, James twisted around and passed Eris towards Fabian's leg, knicking the back of his knee.
James held his breath, the force of Fabian's blade had passed through and bruised his stomach. He thought he might've vomited if he'd eaten more.
Fabian held his hurt leg, doubled over, shouting in frustration.
"The one who stole it all was you!" James choked out, rage boiling his misery. "The crown, our parents, my life! You stole it all!"
Everything had been taken from him. The man he became was unrecognisable to the man he should've been and James could never go back and fix that. His person was stuck as it was and it would never change. He mourned that life.
The only thing that hadn't been stolen was Eris, his sword.
Everything else was punishment. His mentor— a man who had taken him in and taught him how to survive— was suffering in disguise.
James had learnt how to live without realising that survival prolonged the misery the world wished to inflict on him.
He should've died a lonely street boy. Instead, his blessing had torn off its disguise, taken his mentor away from him, and trapped him in purgatory; too miserable to live but too numb to die.
"It's your fault!" Fabian screamed. He managed to stand straight, despite the damage Eris would've done. "I wouldn't have made that mistake if not for you! How was a child supposed to understand the result?"
Such an excuse, James was familiar with it. His anger chilled, body shivering. He looked Fabian dead in the eye.
"You haven't been a child for a very long time now."
Like a blade, the words struck heavily, piercing through Fabian's armour.
That was the thing about lying to oneself; the damage was not only being slapped into awareness, it was the realisation that one couldn't even trust oneself.
The question arose: what else wasn't true?
It dismantled the very foundation of one's reality and personhood.
A commotion stirred outside the room and soldiers rushed out the door to contain whatever it was, their audience mostly abandoning them.
The mood had shifted. Fabian was staring hollowly, not attacking. James took advantage of it, pushing forward with all his might. He overwhelmed Fabian with strike after strike, the other man stumbling backwards, his defence dragging.
"Juli," he sounded alarmed. "Stop!"
The country's greatest swordsman? Fabian was no such thing. His patterns were clean, and his technique too perfectly executed. It lacked the vigour and flexibility of life and death. Even if Fabian didn't reveal it, James knew how he'd lived from this fight alone.
When their boy-selves had fought, it was a lot like that, a choreographed dance more than something violent. It seemed, as time had passed, they'd lost the potential to reexperience that joy also.
"Listen to me!" Fabian tried, truly panicked.
With each strike Fabian was forced another step back, his fear intensifying. Too focused on defence, he'd lost the composure necessary to seek an opening. Their parents silently oversaw their fight like they'd used to, their dead flat eyes watching, trapped within the painting.
At Fabian's feet, the copy of the rug that had used to be there tangled around his ankles. Fabian was caught off balance, his armour too heavy for him to correct his balance. He flailed, then, he fell.
James' heart lurched. Without thought, Eris in hand, he reached for his brother, pulling him to his chest, saving him from his fall. Panting, face to face, Fabian's eyes widened. Under Fabian's breastplate, Eris was lodged inside, reaching into his chest. Eating.
"F- Fable?"
Fabian's eyes fixed on James' face and, finally, they were clear with recognition— real recognition.
Not James, Fabian was looking at his little brother.
Despite the sword stabbing him, there was no anger, no hatred, just shock.
And, if James trusted his own reality, he dared to think he saw something miserably affectionate in them too.
But, just as quickly as the surprise came, the light fell, dying. Until, moments later, it was gone.
The air stilled. James stared, slowly realising what he had done.
King Fabian was dead.
And so was his older brother.
Then, the warmth of Eris' grip snapped cold and James released a shaky breath, stumbling where he stood, Fabian's body dropping to the ground. A hole had been carved out where James' heart was— a gaping thing.
He couldn't feel Eris anymore. She was gone, too.
Silence rang in his ears. The last piece of James' soul had been followed out and he had never felt so alone.
"He's dead!" someone roared, preceding the victorious shouts of the few that remained in witness. "Tell those Ankaid bastards! Their king is dead! It's our victory!"
Victory? James stared at the floor, skin cold. This aching pain, it stabbed him. Was this the feeling of victory?
The men filed out, excited, yelling the news out to anyone who would hear it. James slowly lifted his head, numbly glancing around this nauseously familiar place. His childhood lounge. It was greyer, darker, than his memories. But, it was the same.
James remained, pathetically. Fabian really had built it perfectly.
He touched the warmth on his cheeks, the blood on his fingers coming back wetter, clearer.
Oh. He was crying.
It poured out quickly like a tap, dripping from his jaw. He was taken aback by it, his breath hitching and stuttering. He wiped it away, unable to keep up, examining it on his hands. He hadn't known he was capable.
When was the last time he'd cried? He couldn't remember.
"James," a small voice spoke.
Alex was still there, the only one left.
"It looks the same," James gasped. "Even though it burned down, it looks exactly like the day I left."
Alex's face crumpled and James waited, watching, as he approached. Eris fell from his hand.
Alex pulled James into his arms, wrapping his strong arms around him.
Despite the uncomfortable angles of their armour, James clung to him desperately.
As the pain overflowed, he pushed his face into Alex's neck and the sobs immediately began to convulse his body.
His throat was ripped raw, the cries flooding out of him without control.
He couldn't stop. It hurt. It hurt so much.
James would never know what Fabian had been thinking in his last moments, no matter if he yearned. That look on Fabian's face— James wasn't sure he'd seen correctly. It may have been yet another lie his scrambled and unstable mind wished to see.
He pushed out of Alex's embrace, angrily wiping the wetness away.
Footsteps hammered towards the door. "Your Majesty, the Ankaid soldiers are still attacking us!"
James blinked blankly at the men who'd come in before quickly realising it was him they were speaking to. James glanced down at his hands, trying to ground himself. Like before, they felt distant.
"We need evidence," they pleaded. "Each minute is another death on either side. These men are now yours. Please!"
"James," Alex murmured.
James couldn't think. What were they talking about? His confusion and hesitance left a gap of silence filled by the echoes of distant violence.
Something cold was thrust into his hands suddenly, Alex having passed him a sword.
"James, you must prove his death."
What?
"James," Alex tried again.
James stared blankly before the sword was snatched away and Alex marched away. He stopped by Fabian's corpse and knelt, lifted the blade into the air, the metal catching a dim flash of light, before he sliced it down, striking Fabian right in the neck.
James snapped out of his stupor, recoiling from the gut-churching wet crunch. Alex continued, without hesitation, hacking at the dead king's neck, breaking the bone, blood splattering with each hit. Alex finally looked at him, Fabian's dismembered head in his hands, held by the hair.
His brother.
Alex stepped over to the balcony door and kicked it open, his clumped curly locks fluttering briefly in the breeze.
Alex looked back, his bloodied features softening, lips twisting in something regretful. He tossed Fabian's severed head over the balustrade and into the courtyard where men fought. James didn't even hear it land over the shouts.
"King Fabian is dead!" Alex bellowed over the swollen noise.
James turned away from the excited shouts and demands of the Drykas soldiers, their laughter and cheer poisoning the hot humid air, suffocating.
Alex closed the door, silencing it. He picked up Fabian's crown from the floor, the dull gold smeared with blood. Not a smile in sight, he stood in front of James. Alex was the one to put the crown on his head. The weight of it was real.
By doing this, Alex had forever enslaved James and James didn't know if either of them could ever forgive him for it.
To his shock, Alex got down on one knee and took James' hand— a gesture reserved only for a knight's pledge of loyalty or a proposal of marriage. His chest twisted with nervousness.
"I will serve you, Your Majesty. Unconditionally. If a day came when you'd ask me to throw away my life, that is what I'd do... You've got what you wanted in the end. You own me, now. Forever."
It didn't feel like James got what he wanted.
James gripped Alex's offered hand, squeezing it.
To enslave and be enslaved; this was Alex's apology.
If James hadn't been found, he would've continued with his back turned until his eventual death, living in blissful apathy, the motions of each day blurring past. The fork in his path had been carved out by the man pledging his loyalty and James was the one to suffer the punishment.
It was only just, therefore, that Alex sacrificed himself for that mistake.
"Never betray me," James ordered him. "I don't care what you do. I will only ask you this."
Alex held James' bloodied hand to his forehead, a strangely intimate touch. One that caused James' pulse to flutter. "Never," he promised.
James would try his best to believe him. At the very least, he would pretend he did. Now that James was alone, Alex was the only thing he had left. Even through betrayal, James hadn't learnt his lesson, he would not let Alex go ever again. They belonged to each other.
Harrison and King William chose that moment to enter, numerous guards trailing behind, keeping Ankaid soldier prisoners.
"You've done well," King William said.
James replied nothing.
"Do not forget the thousands of lives you've saved," the king continued. "You will go down in history as a hero."
James only nodded.
With one last squeeze of his hand, Alex slowly rose; a strong and stable force beside him; a force James could dare himself to get used to.
Harrison opened the balcony door once again, humming as he leaned over the edge. It was quieter now, James noticed. The sky was lighter.
"These men are Fabian's trusted nobles," King William said. "What do you wish to do with them?"
Five men James didn't recognise knelt on the floor, beaten and bruised, kept in place by the swords of Drykas soldiers. James stared but felt nothing.
"Lock them up," he murmured, not caring what happened to them.
He was tired.
As King William happily ranted on about James' glory and achievements, James hid inside himself, listing off automatic responses. Time passed like that until James grew tired of the king's voice.
"I want to gather all the bodies in one place to burn; Drykas, Ankaid, and servant alike."
It would've been an odd thing to say. The Ankaid deaths were dishonourable since they'd lost, whilst the Drykas deaths should be held in esteem. They were not equal but James did not care for such a view just then.
"All of them," he insisted at their palpable reluctance.
His request was thankfully allowed. Any blue soldier that was free and uninjured scoured the corridors for bodies, hesitantly indiscriminate in their selection.
They dragged them down the endless steps and out into the courtyard.
James joined them, much to the hateful glares of Ankaid prisoners.
Whilst the Ankaid soldiers kept under the blades of their Drykas counterparts, James knew they wouldn't attack him.
They had no leader. Their leader was already dead. James had killed him.
Outside they were thrown. Dozens, possibly even hundreds, of bodies were stacked up in a heap. From the top of the entrance steps, James took in the gore without truly seeing. The Ankaid survivors were forced to their knees, there to bear witness.
Then, beside him, Alex stiffened. There was horror on his face, his eyes glassy and lips parted.
"What is it?"
Holding a shaking hand to his mouth, Alex hung his head. After examining the corpse pile, James realised why, the blood rushing from his face.
Thomas.
There, yet another body piled unceremoniously on the heap, Thomas laid, eyes half open. The back of his head had been cracked open. Whatever had killed him, he hadn't seen it coming.
Exhaustion numbing him, James fell further back into his own head, the dread draining his blood. It pooled in his feet, rooting him there.
James had liked Thomas.
Fabian's bed. James wished to wake up in Fabian's bed, his tiredness soothed with Fabian trying to kick him off the side. Instead, he was here.
"Light it on fire," James croaked, his voice quiet. The soldier close to him nodded, taking the order.
It started small, hesitant, doing nothing more than baking them, the smoke acrid. Men coughed, the chokes sounding like sobs. People had lost friends, families, lovers, it was not a thing James felt like celebrating.
The fire grew, as James knew it would, its gluttony unleashed as it finally gave in to its savagery and corruptive nature, devouring flesh.
James watched, far away, as Thomas' hair crinkled into nothing in the heat, his skin darkening and shining as it cooked, thickening like leather.
Without realising it was happening, another tear spilt over James' cheek.
He thought it might've been the sting of the smoke.
The crackle of flame spat at all of them, hot and furious. The Ankaid soldiers who were being forced to bow to James as their new king calmed into a serene daze as they gazed into it, watching the embers of their men float up to the sky.
James, eventually found his voice, calling it out. "We burn these men and women as equals. We return them to the stars as such. There was no dishonour here. These people were not defeated by those who stand present— these victims were killed by Fabian. Remember that."
The only way to limit resentment, to dampen the Ankaid soldiers' hatred of him, was to shift the blame elsewhere. They wouldn't believe him, of course. But, hopefully, over time they'd spread their blame thinner. This was the biggest respect James could pay to the dishonourable them.
Behind the raging inferno, beyond the dark skyline of buildings, the night fell, the sky glowing in a slight purple and sending the stars away. James only saw grey.
The sun was rising on the Khearian Kingdom and the Red King shone like blood-splattered gold.
The end.