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Felix is nine-and-a-half.
It’s summertime, the sun high in the celadon sky, breeze balmy and bordering on warm. The stables smell like itchy hay, like animal musk, like oiled saddles and the cloying sweetness of bruised apples. Sunlight shines in through the open half-doors, pooling golden light across straw-strewn dirt, illuminating each dust mote in phosphorescent clarity.
In front of him, Sylvain’s fidgeting with a small folding dagger, flipping it open and closed, open and closed, open and closed, repetitive and irritating and soothing all at once. Ingrid has her hair tied up in a messy braid. A bright ribbon of green falls down her back, fluttering in the breeze as she focuses all her attention on Glenn.
He’s been lecturing them on the bits and pieces of tack for the past half-hour. Felix tuned out approximately three minutes in. He’s heard it plenty of times before: wipe everything clean after you’re done. Use oil, not water. Make sure you get the dirt out of every crease.
Felix is nine-and-a-half and he thinks he might die of boredom.
“Why can’t I ride Chivalry?” he asks. The lesson is over; Sylvain and Ingrid are both saddling their mounts, eager to escape into the dusty heat of the summer sun. Sylvain grins and waves from the next stall over. At two years older, he has enough height to climb up into his chestnut mare’s saddle without help.
Glenn lets out a laugh as he hoists Felix up into his mount. It looks like a pony next to Glenn’s cavalry horse, snorting and scuffing from across the stable. “You’re too little, Fe. He’d shake you right off.” He tousles Felix’s hair, irritating and fond in that way only big brothers can be. “Maybe next year, alright?”
—
Felix spends his eleventh birthday at the capital.
The royal receiving room is smaller than he remembers it. Or maybe it’s just a trick of the eye, packed to the edges with so many people. The last time he’d been here, he and Dimitri had been small enough to hide in the heavy velvet curtains bordering stained-glass, weaving in and out of refracted rainbows and dust motes with whispered laughter as the king held his audience.
Now he stands tall, behind and to the right of his father, willing his fingers not to fidget with the fleece-lined edges of the cape he’d been gifted this morning by Glenn. It’s about time you stopped stealing my old capes, Fe, he’d teased, draping it over Felix’s shoulders in front of the mirror. The crowd shifts and jostles, knights and nobles alike filling the tiered balconies, each one peering over each other’s shoulders.
The king and queen make their entrance in a whirl of royal Blaiddyd blue. The crowd hushes all at once and the herald begins.
He speaks of gentle virtue and chivalrous grace, of achievements of honor in the field and true faithfulness. Felix cranes his neck to catch a glimpse, impatient, finding no luck until the herald says the crown now calls Glenn Hector Fraldarius to come before the court and the crowd at the back of the room splits down the middle.
He stands tall in his armor, the very image of a perfect knight. Cobalt fades to cerulean down his cape. The shield of Faerghus, they whisper, the youngest knight to ever grace the Royal Guard. Glenn looks like he was born to be there as he kneels before the throne, steady and sure. Pride and admiration bubbles hot in Felix’s throat as the herald continues his soliloquy, droning on through the antiquated motions of the ceremony.
When the weight of the king’s lance on his shoulder is finally lifted, Glenn rises. His eyes find Felix’s, mouth quirking almost imperceptibly into a quiet, hidden smile. In his hands lies the symbol of all honored knights in Faerghus: an iron spur, polished to perfection, black as ink and stamped with the royal crest.
It’s Felix’s eleventh birthday, but Glenn shines burnished gold.
—
“When will you be back?”
Early dawn blankets the scrubgrass in glittering dew. The Fraldarius estate is a quiet place before sunrise, the rest of the household chasing the last few hours of sleep before another day. They’d all formally bid Glenn farewell last night at dinner, but that hadn’t stopped Felix from feeling his way down to the stables along the old, ancient stone walls, worn and familiar beneath calloused palms. He finishes lashing Glenn’s saddlebags to the side of Chivalry’s saddle, tugging one last time on the leather strap as he looks up at his brother.
“Towards the end of Pegasus Moon. I’m just there to escort His Majesty and the prince.” Glenn takes the reins with gloved hands. Felix is thirteen, and he doesn’t remember when Glenn dropped all of his teasing, affectionate nicknames for Dimitri: lion cub, little prince.
Felix counts off the weeks in his head. “For so long? That’s almost all winter.”
“Duscur is far,” Glenn shrugs. He mounts Chivalry with practiced ease. Admiration thrums through Felix at how completely at home he looks astride a horse, like this was the exact calling he was born for. “Take good care of father for me. I’ll miss you.”
Felix frowns, fisting his hands into the pockets of his cloak. A breeze kicks up, whipping Glenn’s fur-lined traveling cape around him. “You sound like you’re not coming back.”
Glenn laughs at this, his typical cocksure confidence cutting through. “Of course I’m coming back, Fe. And right in time for your birthday, yeah?”
Felix can’t help but smile as he pats Chivalry’s flank one last time. “Yeah.”
—
Fourteen passes in a blur.
There’s no cake, no candles, no presents. No snowball fight on the front lawn. No visit from Ingrid or Dimitri or Sylvain – they left with their parents a week ago, right after the funeral. He vaguely recalls squeezing Ingrid’s hand so hard on the day of the ceremony that she’d started crying.
—
Felix spends his entire fifteenth birthday training.
Perfecting each sword form is slow, predictable work. Practice hard, put your all into it, and eventually, eventually, you’ll get it. It’s rewarding to finally get something right, and it’s disappointing to fail over and over again. It makes sense, especially when nothing else does.
Like this: a slender black box sitting on top of his bed.
Felix approaches it cautiously. Like it's a wild animal and not just a present. A birthday present. He wasn’t sure if his father had remembered. Nothing about today had been different – he’d woken up early to train, stealing a roll and smoked fish from the kitchen on his way down to the yard. Felix wouldn’t be surprised if the old man had forgotten completely, with how wrapped up he was with helping Dimitri get adjusted.
He pops the lid; his fingers brush against a soft leather parcel resting inside, tied loosely with worn suede. The shape of it, the weight of it, gives it away all at once. When the leather wrapping falls away, Felix drops it like he’s been burned. Blood rushes in his ears. The clank of metal on stone as it falls away is so loud he doesn’t hear the click of the door creaking open behind him.
“They sent that last moon,” his father says quietly. “I thought you would like it.”
Felix whirls, blinking back furious tears. He hates how his father knows already, though, reaching a tentative hand out for something – a hug, comfort – but Felix is quicker than that, ducking out of the way before his touch can land. “Why would I ever want that?”
His father’s face twists into shock, then sorrow. Felix’s mother used to joke about how Fraldarius men tend to wear their heart on their sleeves (at least, that’s what Glenn had told him). He never really got it before today.
“He was a knight, Felix. It’s only right that we honor his memory.”
Felix snorts. “Yeah, because knighthood really worked out for him.”
“Felix, please, I–” His father sounds so weak. Like he’s pleading. Nausea rises in Felix’s throat, threatening to choke him.
“You what? You thought I needed another reminder that Glenn is dead? Like I’m not reminded of it every day?”
All the air gets sucked out of the room with Glenn and dead. Felix almost immediately regrets it, but he mostly just feels hot all over with anger. Silence settles in the room after, sharp-edged and cold.
“I need to wash up before dinner,” Felix finally mutters, not lifting his eyes away from the curled-up corner of the carpet. His voice sounds far away in his own ears, like it isn’t connected to his mouth.
His father clears his throat. “Of course.” He doesn’t move to pick up the parcel, but Felix can feel his own voice dying in his throat as he leaves without it.
—
The spur sits just beneath his bed for weeks. It’s so shiny it almost looks brand new, catching in the lamplight. The blood and dirt have been polished off by some poor blacksmith in the capital. Felix almost wishes they hadn’t bothered.
He steps over it every morning when he wakes up to practice. He trains his eyes to slide past it, like maybe if he doesn’t notice it, it’s not actually there.
—
Sixteen passes and Felix leaves for the west. They quell the rebellion. Felix watches a line of men fall, one-by-one and then all at once. Only a handful of lives lost; only a couple of brothers gone. Something hot burns in his chest when Dimitri shears through a row of archers scrambling backwards, fumbling for more arrows with panic in their eyes.
It is, all things considered, a success.
The mood in camp that night is raucous, joyful. Felix watches the dying embers of the campfire well into morning. He wonders how Glenn felt so at home here when all he feels is sick.
—
Rodrigue greets him back home with a stiff pat on the shoulder and a watery smile. He looks older. Tired. Felix supposes he probably does too. “It’s good to have you back, son.”
He walks down to the grounds next – back through the entry hall, past the stable, into the thicket of pine that borders the estate’s main building. It’s a familiar route, one he’s memorized over the years.
Glenn’s grave is a quiet place. There’s a small bundle of flowers set atop the marble slab, snowdrop covered in hoarfrost, proof of his father’s love.
Why you? Felix asks out loud. The words taste like ash in his mouth. Why you, and not him?
The gravestone doesn’t respond. It never does. It just sits, white marble warm in the weak winter sun.
—
“You have everything?” Rodrigue asks for the fourth time that morning.
Felix barely suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. “I already told you, yes.”
Spring in Faerghus brings a promise of new life: baby birds and tulip buds blooming beneath a rush of blue sky; snowmelt turning dirt trails into rich muddy streams that turn the landscape lush and green for a handful of months. It’s not quite dawn yet, and Felix has to squint to see in the dim light that blankets the valley.
“I’m sorry, I’m just–”
“Double checking,” Felix finishes for him with a quiet sigh. “I know.”
He finds himself lingering, double-checking his bags are securely fastened, adjusting the set of swords he’s lashed onto the back of the saddle. Rodrigue hovers nearby, but Felix ignores him until he can’t anymore, everything triple-checked and ready to go.
“Okay,” Felix breathes. He swings himself up onto his mount. It’s the best stallion in the Fraldarius stables – one of many parting gifts from his father, despite having lost his love for horses years ago.
“So this is it. Off to Garreg Mach,” Rodrigue says, sneaking the horse a sugarcube from his pockets. He looks like he’s going to start on about Glenn’s first day of Officer Academy and how proud he is of Felix for following in his footsteps, but Felix cuts him off before he can continue – he’s not sure if he can stomach another make Glenn proud conversation right now.
“Father. Are you going to let go of the reins?”
Rodrigue blinks, looking down at the leather in his hands. “Ah. Right.”
The silence between them is strange, awkward, too vast. It makes Felix want to crawl out of his skin a little. He starts to dig his heels in, but his father’s hand on the saddle gives him pause.
“I have something for you,” his father says.
Felix waits, apprehension rising in his belly as Rodrigue removes a wrapping made of suede and twine from the inner pocket of his cloak. He recognizes it immediately for what it is: Glenn’s spur, retrieved from the corner of his room where he’d let it collect dust for years. His anxiety melts into something deeper, something worse. Shame.
“I–” Felix’s voice catches in his throat, half-strangled. The way his father looks at him, tired and knowing and hopeful, rips something from deep in his chest. “Okay.”
The black iron shines, catching sparkles in the pale yellow dawn.
It’s lighter than Felix remembered.