Chapter Text
Alcryst shifted restlessly. His skin felt too thin and sensitive; tight across his aching joints. The pain in his chest was dulling his senses, and things only came into sharp relief when he lurched forward to cough wetly into the cloth someone held in front of his face.
“Any sign of the doctor?”
He shuddered and closed his eyes, turning his head away from the voices above him. Dr. Hauyne had always made him nervous as a boy. Truth be told, most adults had made him nervous, but Dr. Hauyne was one of the ones who seemed to smile too much.
You can’t doubt everyone, Princeling.
Pyrite’s words echoed in his head, and for a moment he thought he could feel the man’s breath against his ear again.
“He’s sweated through the sheets again.”
Voices came to him out of the dizzying haze around him. Someone lifted him up, despite his weak struggles, and held him while the rest of the room spun by in a blur of confusion.
“Forgive me, Your Highness. We just need a moment to change your bedding.”
His joints itched and his bones ached. Heat radiated through his chest, spiking down into his lungs every time he took a breath. His breath hitched and he coughed again, his mouth flooding with the taste of iron and salt.
“There’s blood.”
“Amber’s gone for the garrison doctor. Kyan’s not as experienced as Dr. Huayne, but he’s loyal.”
Causing trouble again, Princeling? Why are you always this difficult?
Alcryst didn’t have the energy to be embarrassed as unknown hands stripped him of his sweat-soaked sleepclothes and replaced them with fresh ones. Then he was tucked back into bed under a dry, clean blanket.
“I should check on the queen. She’s been dealt a heavy blow.”
“Of course. We’ll be fine until Amber returns.”
And in your mother’s time of need. So needy, Princeling. Always so needy.
He let his mind fade away, slipping into an exhausted sleep of dreams mingling with memories. His retainer was always there, with his laughing smile and cruel eyes. At every step, every turn, he was always right behind Alcryst, whatever he did.
We go to hell together, Princeling .
Suddenly there were hands behind his back, levering him upright.
“Hold him steady, Miss Jade. Your Highness, I’m going to replace your poultice now.”
“No ‘miss’ needed, Dr. Kyan.”
“Yes, of course...here we are, just let me...there.”
A flash of bright, ripping pain flared across his chest as something was peeled away. Alcryst whimpered and tried to turn away from the pain, but the hands on his back held him steady.
“Easy, Prince Alcryst. Medicine hurts sometimes, but I won’t let him do anything more. You have my word on that.”
Someone prodded at the wound on his chest. A cold hand took his wrist, feeling his pulse, then fingers pushed at his eyelids until he was forced to open his eyes. He blearily saw a young man with reddish hair and golden eyes frowning at him, before the man leaned back and let Alcryst close his eyes again.
“This tonic will help with the lung fever. Miss...er, Jade?”
“Thank you, Doctor. Your Highness?”
He didn’t want any more medicine, but the hands holding him up were insistent. Alcryst pried his eyes open, meeting a woman’s worried expression when he looked up at whoever was holding him.
Jade, one of Diamant’s retainers. He wanted to trust her— needed to trust someone and his family wasn’t here—so he wearily accepted when she held the vial to his lips. The sharp taste of liquorice stung his nose, and he nearly choked on the tonic but Jade’s hands were steady. She slowly tipped the vial up until he’d swallowed the last drop, then set it aside.
“I don’t believe there was anything dangerous in the poultice, but I’ve created one with my own prescription anyway.” The red-haired man was back, a bowl stinking of herbs in his hands.
Alcryst closed his eyes again as the doctor began to prod at his wound. The new poultice was cold, and seemed to numb his skin at the first touch. The doctor applied the sticky poultice to the wounds on his chest and back, then wrapped his chest in fresh bandages.
“His breathing sounds better.”
“Good...that’s good. He still needs to regain some strength before we can try another healing spell, but he’s doing well.”
People moved around him. Alcryst lay back in his bed, suddenly exhausted. He slipped back into sleep, only to be pulled awake again so someone could force a mug of broth and another of tea down his throat.
Can’t even feed yourself, Princeling? Why do they even bother?
His mind pulled him into strange dreams. He’d dream that he was awake, his body healed except for a slight ache in his chest, and try to get out of bed only for his knees to collapse. The sudden fall in his dreams would jerk him awake, and he lie panting and disoriented in the dimness of his room before exhaustion washed over him again.
Where was his brother? His parents? They’d always been at his side before...why weren’t they here now?
Looks like they finally got tired of you. You should have known this would happen .
Alcryst shifted, trying to ignore the voice in his head. It kept laughing, driving word after word into his soul, until Pyrite’s voice was all he could hear.
Maybe his retainer was right. Maybe he was nothing but a liability to his family.
“How is he?”
That was Diamant’s voice.
Alcryst fought to open his eyes, battling past the pain and fatigue that tried to drag him down. He was being selfish, but he didn’t want his brother to leave again. He needed...he needed ….
“Alcryst?”
A hand holding his. Another supporting his head. Alcryst blinked his eyes, his head suddenly light and clear.
“Your fever finally broke,” Diamant said. “How do you feel?”
He was cold. His nightclothes were damp again, and the poultice on his chest felt wet and strange. “I don’t know,” he finally whispered. His lungs seized and he leaned up to cough, Diamant’s hand moving to support his back.
The cough tore through his chest and throat, but it didn’t leave him aching and breathless. He clutched the front of his nightclothes with one hand, breathing raggedly through another spasm of coughing.
“We need to air the room out,” Diamant muttered. “Why are the windows closed?”
“Dr. Kyan closed them when Prince Alcryst’s fever rose,” Jade answered. Alcryst hadn’t noticed her standing at the foot of his bed, and she sent him a gentle smile when he looked over at her. “I’ll reopen them now.”
Diamant nodded. His gaze strayed to the window, where night had fallen over the castle. “It’s a good night for stargazing,” he said suddenly, turning back to Alcryst with a smile. “Shall we go see if we can find Father and Mother in the sky?”
…
The boar was the mightiest creature in the forest, and none could stand against him. And yet, for all his strength, what he lacked was cunning. Even the simplest traps could ensnare him, and even the slowest opponent could outwit him. For all that his power could shake heaven and earth and his strength challenge the mightiest foe, he found himself bested time and again.
The smaller creatures of the forest all feared the boar’s presence, for his fury was as matchless as his strength. Save for one.
The hare, though small and mild, was the most cunning. She could outrun and outmatch any opponent with nothing more than her wits. She knew the smallest paths in the forest; the shadiest hidden places and the refuges where no predator could reach her or her kin. Through the hare’s cleverness, her family had survived.
Yet even family had its limits.
Another animal came to the forest. The fox was wily—though not as cunning as the hare—and strong—though not as powerful as the boar. Though he could not outwit the hare, his strength made her flee in fear and sent her family cowering. Though he could not overpower the boar, his wiles left the boar exhausted and defenseless time and again.
It seemed all of the forest would have to bow to the fox’s tyranny, until the little hare gathered her courage and approached the boar.
“Oh, wise boar,” she began.
“Do not tease me,” the boar retorted. “I know I am not wise.”
“Very well,” she relented, casting aside her eloquent speech to speak plainly. “You know you are not wise. I know I am not strong. And yet this fox, who is neither as wise as I nor as strong as you has soundly defeated us both time and again.”
The boar stamped a hoof impatiently. “So what?” he demanded. “Let him try again. I’ll trounce him next time!”
“Not quite,” the hare spoke up sharply, stopping the boar in his tracks. “Let us work together to drive this new foe out of our forest.”
This thought stunned the boar for a moment. He sat back on his haunches, considering. “Work together?”
“He cannot outwit me nor overpower you. If we combine our skills, then I shall be your brains and you shall be my strength.”
The boar, never one to overthink things, accepting the little hare’s proposal on the spot.
It took less than a day to enact their revenge. For the fox, though less cunning than the hare less powerful than the boar, was prouder than both of them combined. When the hare challenged him to a match of wits he greedily accepted, thinking only of the rabbit stew he could make once he’d gotten his hands on his opponent.
But the hair led him on a merry chase, right into the narrow paths of a bramble thicket. For the hare was small enough to squeeze through the tiny spaces between the brambles, but the fox could not. And the fox—being too vain to admit defeat, though too proud to risk tearing his beautiful red coat, spat and cursed at her from the snare of brambles.
And up came the boar. His hide was tough and his hooves powerful, and he plunged into the brambles without a second thought. The fox, trapped by his own vanity, could only yelp for mercy as the boar’s mighty tusks bore down on him.
Thus the villain was routed from the forest, and the boar and the hare have remained friends to this very day.
…
“Do you see them?” Diamant asked, supporting Alcryst with an arm behind his shoulders. They were on one of the small balconies of the castle, looking over the faint lights of the capitol below them.
“They’re in the northwest at this time of year,” Alcryst replied quietly. He raised a shaking hand and pointed to a spot on the horizon. “There...that’s the hare...so the boar is….”
Diamant followed his brother’s gesture, easily finding the constellations he was looking for . The hare, legs kicked up as though about to spring forward, and the boar, head and hooves raised proudly as though about to charge an enemy.
The Tale of the Boar and the Hare was an old, familiar fable in Brodia. It taught that a man who possessed strength or cunning alone, no matter how powerful, was no match for an opponent that possessed both.
The old story held another meaning for the princes. Though the fable had been around since before their parents were born, they couldn’t help but see a similarity between the boar and the hare and Brodia’s current king and queen.
King Morion, the strength of their kingdom and family. Queen Opal, his strategist and advisor. Together they stood strong, guiding Brodia more surely than if either of them had held the throne on their own. They were truly two halves of the same whole.
Alcryst shivered. Diamant leaned closer to him, making sure the blankets were still wrapped securely around his body. “Are you cold? We can go back in.”
“I’m fine,” he replied, shaking his head. “A little longer?”
Diamant smiled. Alcryst loved the stars. He knew the stories of every constellation by heart, and Diamant still remembered staying up late and staring at the sky while his baby brother explained some new story he’d learned about the stars above them.
“A little longer,” he agreed.
Like the boar and the hare of the story, as long as their family stayed together they would be undefeated.
No matter what came their way.