32. Alar
ALAR
“Forged by fire, brotherhood endures; softened by comfort, it crumbles.”
—Elurian proverb
Arlen had been moved to our paternal grandmother's old wing. It was on the third floor, at the quiet end of the palace, a set of rooms our father's mother had kept until she died, and no one had resided in since.
It was secluded, easy to cordon off, and easy to guard. That served two equally important purposes. It provided Arlen with a sense of security, which Healer Lemil had said was crucial for his recovery, and it kept him out of sight of the rest of the court.
I passed a pair of guards as I entered the wing, another pair at the mouth of the corridor leading to the suite, and another pair who were guarding the door.
"Prince Alar." They bowed to me.
"I'm here to see my brother."
One of them turned around and knocked on the door.
Arlen's manservant opened it just enough to poke his head through, but the words he'd been prepared to say froze on his lips when he saw me.
"Prince Alar." He opened the door a fraction wider and bowed. "Prince Arlen is not receiving visitors."
"He will receive me, Balert." I motioned for him to step aside.
He hesitated for a brief moment, then bowed again. "Yes, Your Highness." He cleared the door for me to enter. "Prince Arlen is seated by the balcony door." He leaned closer to me. "He's having a relatively good day, Your Highness."
The sitting room had not been redecorated after our grandmother's passing, and it still held her faded silk-covered chairs, velvet sofas, and old portraits, but the thick rug that had covered the floor had been removed, and I understood why when I saw the wheeled chair.
Arlen sat in it with his back to me, facing the tall balcony doors, looking out at the walled garden below.
It had been our grandmother's rose garden, and it was still well tended.
A single guard stood on the far wall of the garden, watching the enclosed space and the rest of the palace gardens beyond it.
"The guard is there to make sure no one comes over the wall," Arlen said without turning, and without a word of greeting to the brother he hadn't seen for months.
He sounded like Arlen, his voice hadn't changed, but everything else about him had.
"Hello, Arlen. May I come in?"
I asked because it was the polite thing to do and I wanted to remind him how this conversation should sound, but he ignored me.
"Father indulges me," he said flatly. "Before they posted him, I had Balert move the wardrobe and the writing desk against the doors. That was the only way I could close my eyes at night."
I was surprised he was telling me all that. The old Arlen would have pretended that there was nothing wrong with him. The new Arlen seemed too defeated to care.
"Pathetic, I know."
I came around the chair so I could see him.
He was thinner, especially the legs, which used to be so strong, so muscular, and he wasn't even trying to hide them with a blanket as I'd seen other people in his situation do. His knees looked so bony under the thin fabric of his trousers.
I didn't know muscle atrophy could happen so quickly.
The face was Arlen's face, our father's face, unmarked, handsome, and older than it should be. He was only thirty-three, but he looked over forty now.
He looked up at me, and for one moment the old warmth was there, the eldest brother who had ruled over the rest of us but also showed us the secret passages under the palace and played hide-and-seek with us.
"Little brother," he said. "You've gotten golden."
"Golden?"
He waved a hand at my face. "You are tanned like a sheepherder, and your hair has golden streaks from spending too much time in the sun."
That was the old Arlen, and I didn't know whether to rejoice at this glimpse of him still present in that broken body or mourn what had become of him.
My throat tight, I pulled over one of our grandmother's fancy chairs and sat, putting myself level with him. "I guess I did spend a little too much time outdoors. Much healthier than the artificial lighting indoors, if you ask me. You should try it."
He studied me. "You look well."
"You just said that I looked like a sheepherder."
He smiled. "Can't sheepherders look good?"
I chuckled. "Have you seen any lately?"
His smile wilted. "No. Can't say that I have.
Although I'm about to. Tarina's main exports are sheep wool and goat cheese.
" He put his hands on the large wheels of his chair and turned it around.
"My future bride is going to take me out to pasture like a damaged racehorse that is kept around for sentimental value instead of being put out of his misery. "
Evidently, our parents had decided to tell him about the betrothal now and not wait until the ball to make the official announcement. That was a wise decision, especially in light of what Healer Lemil had said. Arlen wouldn't have reacted well to such a monumental surprise.
"I'm glad they decided to tell you. They wanted to wait until the ball to announce, which was ridiculous. It might have been the custom three hundred years ago, but I would like to think that we've progressed a little in that time."
He rolled his eyes, which made me happy because it was such a normal response.
"Talk about a stupid plan. I'm glad that my future bride knows. I would have felt terrible if they sprung such news on the poor princess. She might have burst out crying. Just imagine how embarrassing that would have been."
I should have braced myself for the sarcasm.
On the walk up here, I imagined several versions of my brother. The one in pain. The one raging at his ruined body. The one drowning in panic. I had not been prepared for this sarcastic version that seemed resigned and almost relieved to be retired.
The fight had gone out of him. Arlen, who'd carried the weight of the Tekumuton succession with pride and dedication, had given up without a fight.
I didn't know what to say.
"I'm sorry, Alar," he said. "I know you never wanted it, and now it sits on your shoulders.
I tried to convince Father to nominate Avren as the new heir, but we both know that he's no diplomat.
" He chuckled. "With him as the Head of the Council, the Federation would fall apart in a matter of weeks, and wars would start. The twins are not an option either. They don’t want it and would be disastrous as kings.”
"I know." I rubbed the back of my head. "But I'm not the answer either. Face it, Arlen, you have to get better because the future of the Federation is at stake."
I shouldn't have said that. The healer had warned me not to put any pressure on Arlen, that he needed to be handled with care, but I wasn't used to this version of my big brother.
The haunted look in his eyes undid me.
"You will have to step up to the plate, Alar," he said quietly, then looked at his legs. "I'm out of the race. I'm content to be the prince consort of the future Queen of Tarina. I crave the peace and quiet."
"Do you even like her?" I asked.
"Cardilia? I don't remember what she looks like, which means that she's unremarkable or I would have noticed her in one of the annual balls."
"I can get you her picture," I said. "The court keeps footage of every annual ball. I'll have someone pull last year's and search through it until they find her, Then, you can watch it as many times as you want until her face is yours."
"What for?"
"So you know her. So she isn't a stranger when she arrives at this year's ball, and your betrothal is announced."
"It doesn't matter what she looks like." He turned to look out at the rose garden.
"The only thing that matters about Cardilia of Tarina is that she's willing to have me.
She's willing to take this broken husk of a man into her house and call it a husband.
" He waved a hand over his body. "I'm grateful to her and to Queen Margada for agreeing to the arrangement. "
My eldest brother, the finest of all of us, the one any province in the Federation would have killed to marry a daughter to, was counting himself fortunate that a small mountain province would take him off the family's hands.
"You're not broken," I said. "You're a hero, Arlen.
You threw yourself at a grenade meant for the king.
You saved Father's life. There isn't a man in the seventeen provinces who wouldn't bow to that, if they knew, and the only reason they don't know is that Father decided it was better to hide how close the assassins had been to eliminating him this time. "
He shook his head, and a small smile curved one side of his lips.
"You know what they say. No good deed goes unpunished.
" He turned the chair back so it was facing the glass doors and the guard on the wall across the garden.
"I'd do it again, and I'm at peace with the cost. I just need a quiet place to hide from the world, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to convince me that I can still rule Catonia and the Federation from this contraption. "
He meant it as a dismissal, but I wasn't ready to be dismissed.
I looked at my brother, and the quiet surrender that had settled over him like a shroud, and I felt my resolve strengthen.
He thought he was at peace, but he wasn't. He was mistaking defeat for serene acceptance, the way a freezing man mistakes the sensation that comes before death as warmth.
The healer's voice sounded in my head. Safety. Routine. Trusted company. The slow and measured facing of fears. I had spent five months learning that discipline, and I could teach him what I knew.
Arlen would be made whole again and refuse to abdicate, and once the throne my parents meant to nail me into returned to him, I would be free to go back to Kailin and Veynathei and the open sky.
I just needed a plan.
"I'll let you rest." I stood. "But I'm coming back tomorrow, and the day after. You're stuck with me now."
He sighed. "You always were relentless."
"I've learned from the best."
I just needed to remind him who the best was.