Chapter 26 #2
“Still your tongue!” Elara screamed. “How dare you insult our love so? We have yearned for each other long before Father and Mother passed, but what would you know of it?” Her lip curled. “What would you know of love?”
Something hot and furious and hurt wrenched through Richard. He stalked forward. “Neither of you has the privilege to lecture or insult me. Not about our parents, whom you both have wronged so.”
“Oh, here we go,” Corwin chuckled, nudging Elara.
“Yes, here we go. Let us go then,” Richard spat.
“Let us speak of how you, Corwin, have been a disaster since a boy. Tavern brawls. Fistfights with dignitaries. That business with the baker’s boy who bedded you only to steal state secrets.
The screaming matches with Father, while Mother wept, Corwin—wept—because she did not know how to calm your temper and impulsiveness.
And you—” He rounded on Elara. “A new lover every season to elope with. A new scandal. Father had to send apology letters to five separate houses because of you. Do not pretend, now, that you were both the attentive children robbed of their parents. Mother and Father were dying of the pair of you long before the trolls ever lifted their clubs.”
Corwin’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Is that so?” He swaggered past Elara, brushing off her restraining hand on his arm. “Well, forgive me, then. Forgive me for not being you, Brother, who never skipped his lessons, who never embarrassed the family. Who could possibly be more perfect than you—”
“Perfect?” Richard barked a bitter laugh.
“I was not perfect, Corwin. I was trying. I was trying, every hour of every day, because someone had to, because you two were useless.” He thudded his fist to his chest. “You both left everything for me to carry. The tutors, the councillors, the dignitaries, the lesser houses, Briony’s safety—every duty that ought to have been shared, I carried, because the pair of you could not be relied upon for so much as choosing a set of cutlery. ”
“No one made you, Brother,” Elara snapped.
She’d dried her tears and now glared at him with contempt.
“No one forced you to become the family’s martyr.
You chose every morning to pick up what the rest of us had laid down because you liked it, because you cannot stand to be not needed.
And now you want to bill us for the hours? ”
“And let us not pretend,” Corwin added, “that Mother and Father never worried over you. You want to know who caused them the most grief? It was you. Because you would not marry. Would not deign to consider the prospect. Match after match, Father paraded noble sons and daughters through this castle, and you sent every one of them away. Mother spent years crying at the sight of you. That was your gift to them. Not my brawls or Sister’s lovers.
It was your refusal to just try the warmth of others—”
“Then why did you not marry?” Richard bellowed.
The fire flickering in his chest became an inferno, and even through his tightening throat—so tight that each word seemed to scrape thorns on the way out—he yelled, “You knew I struggled with—with such matters. You knew I could not—” He swallowed hard against the lump.
“You bedded half the court between you. Why could you not have found a match? You could have taken the burden from me. Instead, for years, I sat across from Father at dinner while he asked me, again and again, when I would settle for another—”
His voice caught, the lump finally too big, and he pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, where a headache had begun to throb.
“That is not how love works, Brother,” Elara said incredulously. “Is that what you wanted? For me to take some nervous lord or lady’s hand because you could not bear a difficult conversation? For Corwin to shackle himself to a stranger at twenty so you could have a quieter meal?”
“I wanted a breath,” Richard said. The room seemed to spin. “One breath, Sister.”
“Do you not understand—”
“Oh, of course he does not,” Corwin jeered.
“Because he does not see people. He sees pieces to place on the board and moves them as he pleases. That is what a king does, is it not?” He drew close enough for Richard to see the angry tears in his eyes.
“Our brother must have been glad when Father and Mother died. No more pestering about marriage. A crown of his own, a council that obeys him and a castle he may arrange as he pleases.” Corwin’s mouth twisted.
“He must have thanked the trolls in private—”
The slap cracked across Corwin’s face before Richard realised his arm had moved.
Silence. Corwin’s head had turned with the blow. He stood there frozen with his face angled towards the bed. Slowly, his fingers lifted to touch where Richard’s palm had been.
Richard lowered his hand, breathing hard. “You have both said your piece. It matters little, and I stand by my decision. Indeed, this childish display proves I was right all along. You may leave—”
Corwin’s punch landed square on Richard’s jaw, slamming him backwards into the mantlepiece. Its edge jutted into Richard’s shoulder blades, and the portrait of their parents toppled. Immediately, Corwin was upon him.
“You bastard!” Corwin was saying—or sobbing, Richard could not tell. “You absolute—”
Richard caught the second punch and drove his shoulder into Corwin’s chest. They went down together against the hearthstones, rolling, grappling, and somewhere above them, Elara was shouting, even little Briony was shouting—she must have been eavesdropping at the door and ran in—
“Stop—stop it! Both of you, stop!”
“Don’t fight!” Briony was wailing. “Stop fighting!”
But Corwin’s fingers tangled in the collar of Richard’s tunic, and Richard’s hand flattened against Corwin’s neck. Corwin swung again and again, the punches coming wide and wild.
“You—bastard—you should have told us! About Marius! About the elf bastard’s proposal! Do you know what the Council mutters behind your back? How I’ve had to defend your vile secrecy—”
Richard raised his forearms, taking the blows on the meat of them. One punch clipped the side of his mouth, and he tasted iron on his tongue. Another was hammered into his shoulder. Corwin was half-crying, half-snarling, spit flecking his chin, his hair falling into his eyes.
“Why do you have to control everyone all the bloody time—”
With a twist and roll, Richard pinned Corwin flat to the rug, driving a knee into Corwin’s hip. He reared back his arm, fist cocked, fury blistering. How dare Corwin, how dare he and Elara do this after everything—everything—he’d done for them—how dare they—
He stopped.
Because it was no longer Corwin, the grown brother, baring his teeth at him. No. It was a little boy with dark hair and dark eyes like their mother’s. A little boy who had once crawled into Richard’s bed during a thunderstorm and pressed his forehead between Richard’s shoulder blades to sleep.
Richard’s arm hung in the air. His fist would not fall.
Corwin bucked and flipped them over. Richard’s back slammed against the carpet, the breath knocked out of his lungs.
“Coward!” Corwin spat, straddling him. “We are not pawns! We are your blood! We deserved to know! They were our parents, too! My father and mother! And their killer still breathes! How am I to face Father in the heavens?”
His fist drew back, and Richard braced himself—
“Corwin!”
Suddenly, Kaelen was there, hauling Corwin off Richard in a single wrench. Corwin kicked out, twisted, snarled curses, but Kaelen dragged him backwards to where Elara stood white-faced with Briony.
“Let go of me!”
“He’s your brother, Corwin!” Kaelen gave him a firm shake. “Your brother! Get a hold of yourself!”
Kaelen released him, and Corwin sank to his knees. He buried his head in his hands and sobbed. Briony dropped to hug his arm, and Elara knelt to fold Corwin against her chest, cradling his head and stroking his hair.
Richard rose, wiping along his jaw where blood dripped from the split lip. His ribs throbbed, and his back ached where the mantlepiece had bitten into it. He looked down at the huddle of his siblings—Corwin in Elara’s arms, Briony nuzzling into Corwin’s shoulder, all three glaring up at him.
As if he were a creature from the dark.
Richard sneered back. “Very well.” He had never heard his voice sound so blank. “Do as you will.”
“My king—” Kaelen started towards him.
Richard held up a hand and limped past the knight to the door. The quiet of the hallway was welcome, but it did nothing to soothe his pounding headache.
Nor the burn in his eyes.