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Khalid al-Din Mahmud was born a bastard to the great Muhammad al-Din and the greater Almyran dynasty, among some of his worse transgressions. Another of those being that his mother was of Fódlanite heritage, and also a duchess-to-be. The story fills out a recognisable shape: she fell in love, eloped, sired a whelp of a boy before she'd even fled the country. All of which makes up the mantle lying heavy over Khalid’s shoulders.

Claude von Riegan, on the other hand, has no backstory—at least, no discernible one. He's winsome, charismatic, and most importantly, possesses a major crest of Riegan. The mysteries of his past can be ignored, pushed aside to reveal him as the shining future of the Leicester Alliance.

So, it is a fifteen-year old Claude who ambles down the columned halls of the capital palace of Tadmor, appearing smilingly calm despite a monstrous inner turmoil. Yet, it is Khalid who is stopped by his mother, darting wiry and white-skinned from a doorway. She spots him and calls out his name. His real name, not any of that Fódlanite pretension.

“Be careful, love,” she whispers, trailing careful fingers over his riding coat, pulling this button on properly and straightening that collar.

Khalid nods. He is relieved that she hasn't asked him to stay—even just a single plea would be enough to waver his resolve. “I'll write you, Amma. I promise.”

She smiles, and then stills. There—a sound, a rustle behind. Tiana von Riegan turns to look. Her son still gazes at her, pain shining glass-like beneath his eyes. “Take Duha and go, quickly now.”

Tiana watches him go, blinking back tears of her own. She walks to the tall window and peers out. A wyvern rises white against the night, bright as hope. She sends a silent prayer to the Goddess she hasn’t called upon in fifteen years.

Protect him, help him, and please: let him win their hearts as I could not.

Fifteen years and another land away, a Goddess hears. She listens.

There is an uproar when Khalid lands in the centre of the Riegan residence’s courtyard. Duha flares her wings wide, sunlight shining a vague pink through her skin and veins, a monstrous nightmare to the people that live in constant fear of “invasion”. Chaos abounds.

And yet, anyone who so much as glances at Khalid can see it. The shimmer of the crest that lives and survives in this boy.

He is brought before the Duke immediately.

Oswald von Riegan takes one look at him and knows exactly who—what—he is. “Boy,” he declares archly. “Tell me: where would your mother be?”

Khalid knows of this man; he knows what he did, fifteen years ago. So he lifts his chin and he looks his grandfather in the eye, and he says, “She is in her true home, with the only family she has ever known.”

Oswald stands. He is not a tall man, but the very light seems to bend towards him—he has an unseen gravitas, leader of the Leicester Alliance that he is. With great malice and barely reigned rage, Oswald addresses his grandson. “It would have been better she had never been born, than having displeased me.”

Khalid bristles, rightfully so. “You no longer have power over her. She owes you nothing but spite.”

“And you, young man? What do you owe me?”

He is looking at Khalid with a challenge burning vengeful in his eye. Khalid wants only to rebuke him, and turn away. But he forces himself to stare down at his feet, not looking up to his grandfather’s eyes. “I want your allyship. I’ve left them all behind.”

The words taste of foul untruth, but the old man eats them right up. Eyes hawkish, breath quick, Oswald asks, “What will you do for it, boy? What will you give me?”

Khalid straightens. He fixes his grandfather with his gaze and holds him there. Oswald’s eyes flash, flaring a brilliant verdant green. Khalid can see his own light reflected back at him, the phantom glow of their shared crest.

“I give you myself.”

He kneels, even as his legs refuse to bend, as his neck protests, as his eyes burn. His father, descended from the kings of kings. His mother, stronger than thrice-fired Wootz steel. Khalid al-Din Muhmad, the best of Muhammad al-Din and Tiana von Riegan, with a history unfurling farther back than this wrinkled shell of a man, bows to he who he must—unfortunately—call grandfather.

The old man smiles. It’s a smug one, pleased like a cat caught a fresh meal. “You may lodge with me, boy. But you are not enough. If you want the title, you’ll have to do more.”

Khalid frowns. “I am the only heir. You have no other descendants with the major crest of Riegan.”

“No, I do not.” Oswald chuckles. “But I am not dead yet, not even close. So you will wait, boy, until I need you.”

Khalid sees now what his mother so despised in her father. To Oswald, the world is a playpen, its inhabitants toys, and he a master to do as he pleases. There truly is nothing he can do to sway this man, so intoxicated by his pride that the world glazes before him. All Khalid can do is wait, bide his time, before he can make his next move.

Oswald watches the boy, small and brown against the pure-white of his ice-bear rug. “And what is your name?”

He meets Oswald’s stare with a familiar fire, the steady green of the foliage of Riegan oak. His daughter had looked at him the same before she turned her back and left. He truly would never hear that sharp tongue again, would he?

“Khalid al-Din Mahmud. But you will call me Claude von Riegan.”

Annoyance flares at the tone. Perhaps this boy’s spite would be close enough to hearing her. After all, the apple never falls far from the tree.

Khalid watches his grandfather smirk to himself at some inane, internal joke. Oswald looks up at him suddenly, and dismisses him with a wave of the hand. “Off you go, Claude. My butler will show you to a room.”

The door thuds shut, and Oswald just stares. The arrival of the boy—fifteen, if he calculates correctly, and therefore of age—cannot fare well for his future, or the future of his state. An Almyran, the head of the Leicester table? That dreadful beast following at his heels like an overgrown hound, garish ornamentation in his ears and hair like a woman, and the true brown burnish of his skin?

Oswald mutters a curse. Damned sometime daughter of mine, bedding some Almyran bastard just to sire another of their kind.

Oswald von Riegan stews some more, before turning his eyes heavenward. “Goddess, help me. I know naught what to do.”

He does not know it yet, but the Goddess indeed has plans to help him. They involve the brown boy he must call grandson; he will not like them one bit.

Khalid finds the stables without any difficulty. Largely in part due to the various screams and shouts of terror emanating from its general vicinity.

Before he can round the corner, Duha’s roar makes even the earth shudder. Khalid runs, then, inserting his fingers between his lips, he releases an ear-splitting whistle.

The tremors subside immediately. Duha bounds towards him, nuzzles his chest with her snout. She curls herself around him protectively as a man approaches. “My—my Lord,” he stutters, trembling as much as his voice. “I mean no offence, but we can not possibly stable the—that—the beast in with the other steeds.”

Khalid realises that he is a stablehand, and not many years older than himself. “Please, call me Claude,” he says softly, offering the boy a hand up. “And not to worry. Duha can reside in the wild.” She huffs into his hair as she hears her name.

The boy just stares fearfully at his hand. “Apologies, your Grace, but I can’t.” He ducks his head several times more and then turns to scurry away. The other folk hurry back to their stations as Khalid peers around at them all.

The people of this land are strange, thinks Khalid. For if he had offered one of the stablehands of Tadmor’s palace his name and hand, they would be bonded by kinship. How his mother, warm and open as she is, had grown up here, he does not understand.

“Go on, Duha,” he whispers to his mount. She turns her head to scrutinise him with one golden eye. “I know, I know. I’ll call you when I need you.”

She offers him one last bump with her nose before she takes off. When the dust dissipates, and Khalid is done coughing, he realises someone is watching him.

The girl is bright-eyed and wide-mouthed, beaming in his direction. When she sees that he sees her, she waves. As he approaches, she pushes herself off the hay-bale she’d been leaning on to meet him. “They’re not meant to touch us, you know. Some superstition about sullying the crests, or something like that.”

She tilts her head to gauge his reaction to that tidbit. Khalid has to look down to meet her eyes—she is horribly short. “That’s ridiculous. Though, my own superstitions and practises must seem rather ridiculous to you all too.”

Her teeth are as white as her skin, unmarked like alabaster. She’s laughing lightly, for no particular reason. “My name is Hilda,” she says.

“Khalid. But everyone here calls me by my Fódlanite name, Claude.”

She laughs again. “That’s funny. Which would you prefer?”

“I don’t know,” he answers, truthfully.

Hilda regards him with a deceptively trifling smile. “Well, my papa says that Almyrans are all bloodthirsty murderers, barbarians, and crooks. And if your name is Khalid, then you must be Almyran. But if your name is Claude, then you must be one of us.”

Khalid can feel his blood flaring beneath his skin. “Well,” he says, anger just contained, “why don’t you tell your father that he’s wrong.”

“I guess,” she says, the smile having wilted a bit. “Since you’re not a murderer, barbarian, or crook, right?”

“Right,” Khalid says deliberately.

The two of them stare at one another, schemers each in their own right, both considering exactly how they could one-up the other. Finally, Khalid breaks the silence. “What brings you here, Hilda?”

“Some silly meeting my father and brother have to attend.” She admires the many rings winking on her fingers. “They told me to find something to occupy myself with.” Smiling up at him, she adds, “Found it.”

Khalid finds himself unsettled by the way she looks at him: both calculating and dreadfully innocent. He’s careful to leave his expression neutral when she continues to ask, “What about you?”

“I was summoned by my grandfather,” he says nonchalantly. Adding, “Duke Riegan, that is,” Khalid gauges her reaction.

Hilda just smiles and claps her hands together. “Great! My brother is always harping on about widening my noble circles, you know.” She’s beside Khalid in the next instant, an arm looped through his the next. Before he can even protest, she’s dragging him away.

That afternoon, Claude learns several things about the girl called Hilda:

She admires his earrings. When he told her his father made them for him, she got an odd, pondering look. (Thinking, perhaps, “How can an Almyran do such delicate work?”)

She is practical and good with her hands, but thoroughly, deeply lazy. Unusual pairing.

Because she would rather make others do things for her, she has a talent at managing people. A scullery maid shyly asked Hilda for assistance repairing a basket, and after a moment’s thought, she had a shipmaster’s apprentice scurry over to help weave up the hole.

Prone to hiding away from duties, she has an in-depth knowledge of various hiding places.

It is in one of these hiding places— wedged in a corner beneath a balcony— that Khalid and Hilda are discovered.

The bellowing is coming from the hall somewhere above them. Khalid jolts awake, stretching cat-like to stare up at the blushing sky. Dusk draws ever closer— as does the volume of the voice.

Hilda dozes beside him, but stirs when he sits. “Going?” she mutters sleepily.

Claude softly shushes her as footsteps stomp above them. “Hilda Valentine Goneril!” comes the deep, and deeply annoyed, voice. “I know you’re under there. Do not let me find you rolling around in the grass.”

With a sigh of weariness that only a fifteen year old can produce, Hilda turns her face up to shout, “Leave me alone!” without moving from her comfortable sprawl.

The face pops over the edge of the balcony now. Khalid attempts to shrink away, but it’s too late. “And who might you be?” the older boy asks.

Khalid gulps, but Hilda is answering for him. “Khalid. Claude, if you’d prefer.”

The boy vaults deftly over the balcony lip and lands in a crouch beside them. Hilda makes a tutting noise, swatting him away. “Oh, come on, Holst, really? Just go back to your duels or taxes or whatever it is you and papa do together all day.”

“Father wants you, actually.”

Holst turns to Khalid and offers a nod. “Holst Vincent Goneril. Elder brother of this—” He gestures in Hilda’s direction, which earns a wrinkled nose from her. “Lovely to meet you.” It’s the truth. Holst doesn’t normally abide the falsities of small talk.

He’s a little squarer than Hilda, mouth thicker and nose a little bent. Their eyes are exactly the same, though, piercing and pale. He bears a strong resemblance to his father: Hrothgar Goneril, a man as feared as he is hated by the Almyran populace. Unfortunately, the boy is also devastatingly handsome.

Khalid hesitates to shake his hand, understanding the significance of such an act. An Almyran prince and the Goneril son.

Holst studies quite openly this bronze boy with eyes like the breath of the world before a monsoon. He reads the thoughts left unsaid in his stillness. “I don’t know what drivel Hilda has been spouting, but I respect you lot. It’s too bad we have to fight, or our parents have to fight, I mean.”

Holst has a pragmatic way about him. Direct, blunt. The other side to Hilda’s coin. Khalid can’t decide whether he likes him yet, but his surefootedness has earnt his respect at the very least.

Holst’s hand still hovers between them. Khalid takes it, the leather of the other boy’s glove soft and worn. “Khalid al-Din Mahmud. I hope to govern beside you one day,” he says, tilting his chin up. Not Claude, charming, easy, pleasant— Khalid, who speaks with his entire being, and imparts a blinding dazedness on everyone he meets. And whether Holst registers the irony of governing beside an Almyran, he doesn’t reveal.

Then Hilda is bustling off with her brother, scaling the vines, gone before the sky can even fully darken. Khalid keeps staring up at the balcony, thinking. Holst Goneril. Not a bad ally to have.

Khalid spends the rest of the week following his grandfather around like a prized hound.

“Claude, my grandson,” it goes, and then some squawking and squabbling about how brown he is and what a strangely-shaped nose that is, and those eyes? And then Khalid would become Claude von Riegan, and Claude would smile, it’s lovely to meet you, truly, that is a beautiful colour/silhouette/texture on you. And to those that would just stare at him with distrust cold, Claude just smiled.

Claude von Riegan loves the attention, loves the opportunity to meet all of these new people and potential allies and future associates. Khalid al-Din Mahmud wants to tear all of their pale faces off. All of those false smiles and empty words and useless posturings. White as sheets as ghosts as corpses.

But Claude gets a grip and Claude sits beside and slightly behind Oswald in their round table meetings and dinners and luncheons and rides. (Khalid does not ride horses very often at all. They take as well to him as he takes to them. Which, is not well at all.)

Another round table meeting. All five heads of the major territories, drinking tea and talking. Count Gloucester drinks only tea imported from any country but Fódlan. He takes a slow sip, and then begins to speak. “About this”—he licks his lips, eyes darting to the space above Khalid’s head and then back again— “Almyran threat.”

Hilda and Holst’s father, Duke Goneril, leans forward. “No recent reports of movement. It is worrying, to say the least.” Khalid tries to look to Holst, also sitting beside and behind his father, but the smoke of their cigars forms an impenetrable wall.

They all seem to be looking at Khalid without actually looking. He can feel the weight of their not-scrutiny, every single glance and pause while they continue discussing where to allocate troops and funds, what those dastardly Almyrans would do next in their bloodthirsty quest for battle, Fódlanite women, and land.

Khalid supposes that it wouldn’t matter to them that Almyra is already rich in everything they could ever need. That maybe Fódlan attempts invasions as much, if not more so, than the so-called barbaric, warlike people across the mountains.

He could tell them of the way his father, wearied after a war meeting, fell into his mother’s arms while Khalid stood outside their chambers, eavesdropping— overhearing lamentations of the death-toll of Almyran folk that had the simple misfortune of living beside the border.

War is a messy affair, Khalid knows that. People die on both sides. But listening to the way that Margrave Edmund negotiates— my people need ore too, you know— for just another hectare more of the mountain land that they stole, plundered, conquered, murdered for, Khalid thinks that maybe this is more a drawn-out military farce than a war. Or maybe they’re the same thing.

“What do you think?”

Khalid blinks, focuses on Oswald, who has inclined his head to stare at his grandson. “What do you think about this Almyra business?” the leader of the Leicester Alliance asks.

A hundred thoughts rise to the surface of Khalid’s mind. The foremost is, ‘It seems to me that Almyra would have nothing to do with this if not for the land and resources and wealth that you wish to steal from right under our noses,’ and the next is, ‘I will drag you all by your silly wigs and jackets to the battlefield to show you the blood of my people.’

For the first time, Khalid considers that maybe peace is not an option. At least, not one that he wants to achieve, sitting in a room with these ghoulish, unfeeling men.

To his grandfather, he says, “I don’t think you need my opinion.” I don’t think you want to hear it, anyway.

Gloucester blusters on as if Khalid has not said a thing at all. “If I am really to aid in funding these war efforts, for lands that I have no jurisdiction over, may I add,” he declares with a sniff, “then I would like some compensation too.”

Count Ordelia, sitting so still in his seat that he might as well have not been there until he spoke, murmurs, “And I, as well.”

And then these great, noble lords are squabbling like children over candy, and Khalid stands unnoticed to leave the stuffy room. Outside, he expels the cologne and tobacco from his lungs as he walks away, not in any real direction, just away.

“Khalid! Claude! Oi!”

Khalid turns, already affixing a Claude-worthy grin to his face. Holst jogs towards him. “Why are you smiling at me like that?” he asks, and the spell holding Claude together evaporates.

Sagging, Khalid settles into step beside the older boy. “They talk about war like it’s a game.” He realises it’s true as he says it. Moving battalions around a field like moving pieces around the board. Khalid feels a bit sick now, reflecting on the legacy of his strategy games.

“It is, to them.”

Holst is neutral, too hard for Khalid to read. He blurts, suddenly, “But you’ll be Duke, one day. What will you do? Will you follow in your father’s footsteps?”

Regarding him with a cryptic expression, Holst says, “I don’t know. I have a few years.” Then, “And you’ll be Duke, too.”

It’s a question, posed as a statement. Khalid brushes past it. “Why did you leave anyway?”

“You were there one moment, and not the next. I wanted to know why you left.”

Neither of them acknowledges that they were watching each other, then, staring through smoke and mist to make out the other’s face.

Holst leads Khalid to the unofficial Leicester round table meeting. They walk in as a white-haired girl screams at Hilda. “You give that back right now!”

“No, I don’t think I will. I thought you said you didn’t like sweets anyway.”

“I—I don’t,” she says, unconvincingly.

“And how old did you say you were?”

Lysithea von Ordelia, a good two years younger than the rest of her noble counterparts, bristles. “That’s none of your business.”

“Alright.” Holst draws their attention like moths to the brilliant gravity of the sun. “Calm down. Hilda, give her back that taffy.”

She does so, pouting.

“Who might you be?”

Khalid meets the flint-eyed gaze of a boy he could only describe as miniature-Gloucester. “Khalid von Riegan.” He would've give them the whole Claude spiel, except that he suddenly does not care. The apathy has burrowed deep into his bones.

The boy sniffs in a very good mimicry of his father. “My father tells me that your mother was a whore.”

Hilda gasps. Holst moves very threateningly in the boy’s direction. They’re all staring at Khalid, quite openly.

Khalid blinks, brain still not done processing what the Gloucester-spawn had just said to him. Then, he laughs out loud. “Your diplomacy still needs some work, you know.”

Gloucester the Second flushes a lurid red. “I, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, will not stand for that sort of tone—”

“Sit. Down.” Holst is standing behind him, suddenly, both hands resting on Lorenz’s shoulders.

The boy does so.

Khalid takes the spare seat beside Hilda, and then Holst sits beside him with a soft sigh. “Now. Anyone have anything to report?”

Hilda’s hand flies up. “One of the maids is…” She lowers her voice to a scandalous whisper. “Pregnant.”

Holst snorts. “Anything notable to report?”

“We,” Lorenz begins with a pointed glare at Khalid, “have an Almyran in our midst.”

“Truly?” Khalid pretends to study each of the other children in exaggerated fear. “Oh, he must be fearsomely, brutally, terribly handsome.”

Marianne, who has not looked up once, laughs softly before her hand flies over her mouth and she looks at Lorenz in abject fear. He doesn’t notice, though, because Hilda is laughing even louder.

“Do we not think that this is a terrible omen of the future? What’s next, a Dagdan? A Brigidine? Goddess forbid, a Duscurian?”

If Khalid had not already had the great displeasure of meeting Lorenz’s father, he would have thought the boy was joking. Unfortunately, Lorenz had never once in his fifteen years of life considered this so-called ‘joking’ as a noble or worthwhile pursuit.

Holst sighs again. “Truly, Lorenz, I wish you would shut up.”

It’s Khalid’s turn to laugh— the sound bursts from his mouth in surprise. He meets Holst’s gaze, eyes softly crimped at their corners.

They have their conference, then, discussing issues that only fifteen year olds (plus a thirteen and sixteen year old) think significant. The best times to infiltrate the kitchens to avoid Cook’s indiscriminate wooden spoon, the most winsome stable-hands, stealing training weapons and having their own little contest, and so on.

Khalid walks out of the room together with everyone else, feeling warmed from the inside, smiling true for the first time in days.

He knows now, what to do. Peace can be an option. It will be an option. Only one man will have to suffer for Khalid to achieve it.

Khalid, starry-eyed and eleven years old, had always believed in diplomacy, negotiations, and good relations. Still, his mother had apprenticed him to the royal poisoner— called publicly their apothecarist— in that worry that all parents of idealistic, dreamy children have.

His father had protested, saying it wasn't the honourable way, making my son a murderer, and she had fixed him with that steel-boned stare and said, “The world will make of him what it will. I know my father, and I know what lows he would stoop to.”

It was all a game to Khalid, mixing and mashing and stirring. He learnt to heal as well as to hurt, but he didn't know he was doing the latter at the time.

Now, four years on, he understands why his mother had given him this gift.

Oswald von Riegan drank a cup of coffee every morning upon waking up. He had it delivered to his room, on the exact last toll of the seventh hour, always steaming hot.

Khalid learnt this from a charming maid called Milly. She asked him a number of questions about Almyra in return, which he answered gladly. Better questions than avoidance.

It was too easy, much too easy. Slip an increasing amount of the powder in, each day, under the guise of getting his own morning brew of tea. It would not be a fast, or painless death. If the Duke Riegan were to drop dead the next morning, with the new arrival of his suspicious, oddly-coloured grandson, would they not all swivel to pin the blame on him?

And, as far as Khalid is concerned, the old bastard deserves it anyway.

Khalid got to know the kitchen staff very well. The grounds staff too. He said hello every time he saw them in the halls, at the dining table, on the grounds. To them, he is Khalid. To them, he is almost a friend. More so than the illustrious Duke Riegan ever tried to be.

It has been a month since Khalid first landed in the courtyard of the Derdriu residence. The other noble children left weeks ago, after the round table meeting wrapped up. But today, Hilda and Holst are coming to visit— this, of course, is a guise for whatever secret meetings Riegan wants to have with Goneril.

Still, at the cantering of hooves, Khalid is taking the steps from his tower room three at a time, leaping towards his dearly missed friends. Hilda squeals his name, and they sprint at one another, right into each other's arms. Holst laughs from somewhere nearby, before he piles on, comfy and strong, a sun-warmed wall.

“How’s the fart been?” Hilda whispers, jerking her head in Duke Riegan’s direction.

“A pain in my arse,” comes Khalid’s hushed response. Holst’s shoulders shake in a silent laugh.

They get out of there before the old fart can overhear them. In the woods outside, Khalid brings his fingers to his lips and releases a whistle.

There’s a distant roar. The wind blows Khalid’s hair directly into his eyes, whipping at his clothing. It’s gone as fast as it happened, and there she is.

“Duha! How are you, baby?” Khalid scritches her behind her ear, the rumble of a purr reverberating in the bones of his chest.

When he turns, Hilda is staring at his wyvern with absolute terror, rooted stiffly to the spot. “Come pet her. She won’t bite.” Khalid grins. “Not unless I tell her to.”

Holst is standing there beside him in an instant, a hand hovering in front of Duha’s snout. Khalid watches him, the care with which he shifts closer, the way he holds Duha’s gaze.

The wyvern butts Holst’s hand with her nose, nearly pushing him over with her enthusiasm. Hilda’s hands fly over her eyes and she squeals, “Please don't eat my brother!”

“Duha!” She looks up at her name, head tilting curiously. “Don’t you dare bite his hand!”

Meeting Khalid’s gaze, Holst smirks before he gives a hoarse shout of pain. “The foul beast is chewing up my arm!”

Hilda shrieks again, and Holst falls over. Duha, sensing a game afoot, settles on top of him and begins wrestling with him.

“Oh, Khalid, make it stop! Stop!”

When neither of them says anything else, Hilda uncovers her eyes. Khalid is shaking so hard he might be crying, and Holst is still fighting for his life against the beast.

Hilda quickly realises that Khalid is laughing. “Very funny,” she snaps, crossing her arms. Still, she smiles a little at the sight of her brother and a wyvern play-fighting.

Khalid is still grinning when the image evokes an unwelcome thought: perhaps Holst would one day wrestle with a real wyvern in a real fight, on a dusty wasteland straddling a mountain range. His smile fades.

“I have something to tell you two.”

They must read the new, deliberate tone, because both stop bickering to look at him.

He doesn't even know where to start. Inhaling, Khalid just talks. “I'm Almyran, you both know that. We grew up on opposite sides of a war, no doubt seeing the pointless skirmishes and casualties and deaths.” He doesn't dare look at them, because anything could kill him right now— kill the dream he has nursed for fifteen years.

“Your father and the rest of them won't do a thing about it. This war benefits them, and no one else. So…” He caves; he looks. Hilda appears as deceptively uncertain as always— he's known her long enough to understand that it's her defence. And Holst? He looks, against all odds, expectant.

Emboldened, Khalid says, “I’ll be the next leader of the Alliance. Sooner rather than later.” And if they understand the underlying meaning of those words, they don't reveal it.

Hilda, younger, more impressionable than Holst, sees the dream with clear eyes. At that moment, she puts her full faith in Khalid. She believes. She smiles, and they share it.

Holst has carefully arranged his features into neutrality. He wants to believe that Khalid’s plan will work, he truly does, but it feels like— well, it feels like a dream. Unattainable, distant, an indistinct glow that draws one forever forward and forever off-track. He hears it in his father’s gruff tones.

Duha makes a whining noise in the back of her throat, having been deprived of her new playmate for too long.

Her presence interrupts the tension, shelves it for later with the last look Holst sends Khalid. Feeling still slightly queasy, Khalid makes himself grin. “Who wants a ride?”

Hilda’s ride was short, and she did not enjoy it one bit at all. She clung to Khalid’s waist the entire time, eyes screwed shut, every muscle in her body tensed so hard Khalid was surprised she could dismount by herself. He, meanwhile, spent the entire time laughing.

The ride with Holst is a whole separate affair.

Khalid meets his searing look with an equally-indifferent stare that he learned off the very best (Hilda). He tells himself to act normal. When Holst clambers on behind him, Khalid forgets what normal is.

Attempting to swallow the lump in his throat, Khalid snaps the reins with a little too much enthusiasm. Holst’s arms fly around Khalid’s waist as they take suddenly to the air. Duha snorts, turning to give him a dirty look.

They're flying smoothly now, cruising up and up towards the clouds. Khalid feels Holst laugh before he hears it, the sound rumbling from his chest to reverberate in Khalid’s own. He wishes he can capture the feeling, hold it close.

The cloud is cool and wet, and when they emerge above it, Duha sparkles with water droplets. Holst’s hands have loosened from their vice around his waist. The knot Khalid has made of his innards remains.

“How are you killing him?” Holst asks, unbidden.

“Poison.”

“And he doesn't suspect anything?”

“Not that I know of.” Khalid wants to add that he's done his research, thank you very much, and that the old man deserves the pain. He doesn't; there's nothing he needs to prove to Holst. At least, not up here, beneath the endless expanse of blue.

Khalid leans to the left, and feels Holst do the same behind him. They begin to cruise in large, lazy circles.

“You stay safe, Khalid. I—” He hesitates. There's nothing but sunshine and cloud-banks up here though, so he continues, quickly. “I would not want to see you harmed.”

The circles grow tighter, looping like a noose. “I know. I will.”

Holst has let go of him completely now. Glancing back, Khalid makes out his arms thrown open to the wind. Turning back, he says to the sky, “You know, Holst, I admire you greatly. Too greatly to see the day I must face you on the other side of a skirmish.” In the same breath, he adds, “Hold on, we're diving now.”

Even after Khalid’s suggestion, the feel of Holst’s hands are a surprise. Khalid can feel his warmth bleeding through his tunic, the brush of his fingers against cloth— not even skin— enough to make his mind go blank for a second.

Duha throws her head and he remembers what he said. Khalid releases his hold on the reins. Duha tucks her wings. He and Holst lean forward as one.

They float together, weightless, if only for a moment.

Then they tip too far to be still anymore, and they're falling— no, diving. The wind tears at Khalid’s hair, passing through the thin fabric of his clothing to knife into his skin, taking every single word he could have said to Holst and throwing them to the sky. Khalid yells a wordless joy and throws his arms free.

Behind him, Holst tightens his grip. In a fit of bravery, he presses his entire body tightly against Khalid, cheek warming against his shoulder. He can feel Khalid’s voice, even as the wind strives to tear it away— it makes him suddenly aware of a prickling warm thing that has taken up residence beside his heart, in the centre of his chest.

They dive, and Holst can only think about what Khalid had said to him. He can't begin to consider how he might reply, and neither can Khalid. The cloud-cover passes by too quick, its water already flying away. The shock of it throws Holst back into their freefall, locks him from his mind.

The pressure builds in their ears as they approach the trees, faster and faster. They are both secretly grateful for this movement, this sharp, heart-stopping dive. There is only this breathless moment. There is only their bodies, melded together so not even air can come between them.

Duha’s wings open with a mighty snap. They both leave the saddle for a second before crashing back into her. She huffs, but glides down to land beside Hilda with barely a puff of dirt.

Khalid just sits dumb, Holst still behind him. Then he comes back to himself and slithers off the saddle. Holst jumps after him, but miscalculates the distance and falls to land on his hands.

Khalid is worried he's injured until he sees the way he’s shaking. Laughter, not pain. “Are you alright?” Hilda is asking shrilly, running to Holst’s side.

He holds up a hand to placate her, face still contorted. “That,” he says between gasps for air, “was the best thing I have ever done.”

Khalid beams. “You’re welcome,” he says smugly. “Though you should really thank Duha.”

Holst gets to his feet, dusts off his hands on his trousers, and places them both on either side of Duha’s snout. Staring deep into her eyes with an affection that makes Khalid want even more to give him his entire heart, Holst thanks her profusely.

Duha, the old sap, leans toward him and bumps his nose with hers.

Hilda is looking at him suspiciously. “What took you two so long?”

Khalid directs a fond smile at Holst before turning back to Hilda. “Not being scared of flying, first of all.”

She punches him directly on the shoulder, sending pins and needles down the arm. “Had it with you boys.”

“You know you love me.”

“I most definitely do not. But”— she smiles slyly— “someone else does.”

Khalid looks back at Holst, who is once again wrestling with Duha in the dirt. He looks up and meets his eye, a smile lighting his entire face. Khalid strives to memorise every detail of that expression, until Duha butts Holst’s head with hers and they’re fighting once again.

Throat suddenly dry, he says to Hilda, “You may be right.”

Khalid and Holst took to the sky three more times before Oswald’s announcement. The first time was in the desert orange of dusk, after Khalid had flown half the day to meet Holst at the Goneril home nestled in the mountains. They dove again, letting the wind and the sky and the sun take them away from themselves.

The second was during yet another meeting between their parents. Khalid had loaded up Duha’s saddlebags with cheese and bread and stolen wine and flown them to a nearby mountain overlooking the sea. They had sat side-by-side on a blanket, shoulders and arms electrified by the contact, and talked. Their hands had casually sat atop one another the entire time.

The final time was the next day, in the blue of pre-dawn. They’d met, still sleepy-eyed, in the courtyard. Sneaking past the guards into the field beyond, they met Duha. She flew north in a race against the sun. Holst caught Khalid’s hand as they landed, tugging him off the saddle and onto the sand. They threw off sandals and ran, ran all the way to the water’s edge.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Holst had asked, his eyes reflecting the brilliant sunrise.

Khalid had looked at their hands still clasped, and stepped further into the water, pulling the other boy with him. “Yes,” he said, looking only at Holst.

At that moment, Holst looked back at him too. With a strange urgency, Khalid tugged him close with their linked hands. His eyes were kaleidoscopic with the light, a curve that captured the full scope of the sky. There was an entire world in those eyes.

Holst gazed at Khalid too, finally close enough to decide that those flecks in his eyes were a golden-brown, aglow in the sunrise. He leaned closer, and closer, until his lips found Khalid’s and he couldn’t see his eyes anymore— just the vague gold of dawn permeating the dark, and the tender warmth of Khalid against him.

They flew home in a lovesick daze. Khalid even let Holst steer, and spent the trip back with his face pressed to Holst’s back, breathing in the scent of pines and mountain rain, now joined by the salt and sun. He held Holst tight, and wouldn’t have let him go.

He wouldn’t have let him go, if not for the guard that runs up to them as they land. “My lords, Duke Riegan has taken ill.”

They arrive breathless in Duke Riegan’s chambers. Thick drapes keep out the sunlight, and carpets cover every inch of the floor. Riegan lays in his four-poster bed, shivering despite the heat of the day and the stuffiness of the room.

“Claude, my boy,” he rasps, and Khalid goes to him like he’s being pulled on string. He stops beside him, waiting. “Come closer.” He leans in, and his grandfather whispers, “I know what you’ve done.”

Fighting the urge to recoil, Khalid regards him coolly. “What have I done, my Lord?”

Oswald laughs shortly, then breaks into a new fit of coughing. “Left me bedridden and unable to rule, boy,” he manages. “You are my sole heir.” Khalid can’t help but lean closer. His grandfather, shriveled, less of the lesser man he had been before, takes a rattling breath before adding, “Take it. Take my seat.”

As Khalid reels away, heart swollen with the relief of leaping even closer to the sun, Oswald’s hand flies from the quilt to catch his arm. “On one condition: you attend the Officers’ Academy to learn the art of war.” The smile he bares at his grandson is vicious. “Your mother went there, before she failed me.”

Khalid leans in nice and close again to hiss into the shell of his grandfather’s ear. “Declare me as your heir before I go.”

“And if I do not?”

“Then you lose not only your life, but the legacy of the Riegan line.”

Oswald stares warily at his heir, suddenly more beast than boy. He wishes foolishly that he had just turned him around and sent him back to his Goddess-damned mother. He thought this land would eat him alive; he had forgotten that the boy was made from this place, however distantly, too.

Khalid watches his grandfather watch him. His eyes flash with the Riegan crest, and he stands straight and strong, a rare arrogance rearing its head at the sight of his thoroughly-defeated grandfather.

The old man begins to cough again, eyes screwing shut against the pain. “Alright, boy, alright. It is yours.”

That night, Oswald von Riegan calls an emergency meeting of the Leicester Alliance leaders.

They arrive in an onslaught of parties over the next few days: horses, servants, retainers, and of course, nobility. As Khalid makes his tea the coming mornings, the staff complain to him of the extra work. But, they concede, it is not every day that the leader of the Alliance declares a new heir. Khalid just smiles, uneager to show his hand.

After Gloucester’s delayed arrival, the leaders assemble, not in the normal meeting room, but in Riegan’s chambers. Khalid nods to the other heirs as he enters. Holst’s lips curl into a smile, Hilda waves brightly, Marianne nods back, and Lysithea raises an eyebrow. Lorenz chooses to acknowledge his presence with a look up and down, scrutiny shifting into a smug smile.

A servant helps Duke Riegan sit up. Khalid notes the hungriness and concern that marr the faces of the alliance members. “Due to the current state of my health,” Oswald begins. “I am forced”— he meets Khalid’s gaze— “to declare an heir to the Riegan chair.”

Khalid inhales and holds the breath. He doesn’t dare move, and no one else even so much as stirs while Oswald gathers himself. “Claude von Riegan, my grandson.”

Every gaze in the room swings to look at him. Khalid steps forward, but a hand around his arm snatches him back. “An Almyran for the head of the table?” Gloucester spits, nails digging into Khalid’s skin. “I will not stand for it!”

Khalid wrenches his arm out of Gloucester’s grip, glaring. His heart thumps an uneven beat in his ears, underscored by the roaring of his blood. Edmund, ever prone to disagreement with Gloucester, raises his voice to agree that an Almyran would not be the best choice. Ordelia does not say anything, but he nods along. Khalid’s tongue lays leaden in his mouth, dulled, corpse-like.

“Considering the current political state, I do not think an Almyran leader would benefit us, or our troops.”

Duke Goneril’s gaze skirts over Khalid in a dismissive arc of the room, and he thinks that he would have rathered the man to glare at him than to ignore him, as if he is not there, or transparent, or forgettable. The other lords stand united, looking at Khalid as if he is just a smudge on the carpet. He might as well be, considering his failure to think of anything to say to save himself.

“I believe in Khalid,” comes the voice from behind. Hilda pushes through the men, marching across the room to stand beside him. Taking his hand in hers, she kneels. “I swear allegiance to Khalid al-Din Mahmud, and the greater Leicester Alliance.”

As she rises, she casts him a quick wink. He grins, unabashedly, and together they turn to face the tide. Lysithea is next. She stands on his other side, and swears her allegiance as well. Marianne does not say anything, but she squeezes his hand and nods.

Khalid searches for Holst, meets his eyes. Come to me, he wants to say. Stand beside me.

Yet, it is Lorenz who finally extricates himself from the men of the Leicester Alliance. “I believe Khalid to be a foolish boy,” he starts. The others stiffen around Khalid. “But. It is a noble’s duty to do what is best for their people. And, Father”— he looks Gloucester right in the eye— “wouldn’t you say this war has gone on too long?”

They stand, parents against children. Except Holst remains stubbornly behind the wall. He avoids Khalid’s gaze.

“It must be a majority,” Ordelia says. “We are split even.”

Gloucester sniffs. “Our say should matter more than our children’s.”

“Are your children not the future of this Alliance?” Khalid asks archly.

“Only one of them is sensible enough to be a real leader,” he retorts, daggered gaze on his own son.

“Holst.” Khalid turns to him, the pleading tone unmistakable. He sees Holst shake his head, but continues anyway. “Join us.”

“Who says it’ll change a thing?” Holst steps forward, and his father lays a protective, warning hand on his shoulder. “Who says that you can end this war?”

The lords nod as Holst continues. “I don’t want to fight you, Khalid. I never have. But these… these Almyrans, who says they’ll stop attacking us once you become leader?”

Didn’t we share the world this morning? Khalid wants to shout. I let you ride with me. I showed you our stars. I gave you my heart. He doesn’t. He doesn’t, because Claude would not, and he must be Claude right now.

“So you’ll let it continue. You won’t do a single damn thing about it.” Hilda’s voice crackles and sparks as she points an accusing finger at her brother. “You are a coward, Holst!”

“And you’re a fool and a dreamer. I grew up— when will you?” He doesn’t look at Khalid, but he doesn’t need to for each word to hit him like a slap to the face. Where is the Holst he knew up until this moment?

Khalid al-Din Mahmud, his father and mother’s son, would have stepped in and fought for himself. He would have spoken to them, touched their hearts with his will, brought them willingly to his side. Claude von Riegan would have charmed them, would have proven that he is more than any Almyran. He would have earned their vouches from the beginning.

But he is neither anymore. He is no one. He is not there. He stares dully as the room erupts into overlapping arguments, voices climbing towards the ceiling in a rapidly rising tide. Holst’s face swims into view; he is making his way towards him.

Khalid, Claude— the coward either way— barges past him and slams the door behind him.

Outside, in the shadows of the hallway, Holst pleads after him. “Khalid, Khalid, please, listen to me.”

Khalid turns and spits, “Why should I? You lied to me.”

“When did I ever say I supported this ridiculous plan of yours—”

“Ridiculous?” Khalid releases a dark laugh. “You said you didn’t want me to get hurt. But here I am, hurting. You liar.”

Holst rubs his face. “Please. I admire what you wish to achieve, I truly do, I just don’t think it’s possible.”

“Oh, yes, because the Almyrans are so bloodthirsty that they must defend their home from invaders seeking to steal it away from them. Because those damn Almyrans won’t stop hoarding all of their rich farming lands and their dense pine forests and the gold in their mountains. You said that we were fools, but you’re wrong. Those ghosts of men speak for you, and you are the fool.”

Holst visibly wavers as Khalid speaks. “It’s not that simple, and you know it—”

“You’re right, Holst, it’s not that simple when one country attacks and the other retaliates. You know what’s simpler than war? Trade. Diplomacy. Mutual aid. Why do you insist that we maintain this border between our lands?”

“Well, I— You— ” He can’t justify it and they both know it.

Khalid continues, closing the distance between them. “You know why? Because those five men in there, including your father, benefit from the deaths of soldiers and civilians alike. They look at the red of a battlefield and only see the gold of land gained.”

Khalid understands now that he and Holst had been living a dream. They had been playing at love, where Khalid was an Almyran before he was a lover, or a friend. Claude von Riegan had never existed: he had always been a brown boy trying to play the ghost.

He turns away from the pale-eyed, pale-skinned boy, who stands silent and still. If Khalid had been playing at ghost, then Holst had always been a ghost— drifting along after his father’s war.

Hilda finds Khalid under the balcony, pulling up grass by the handfuls. “They’re postponing the decision,” she tells him. “We’ve got a day to get Holst on our side.”

Khalid turns to her with dead eyes. “He won’t listen to me.”

“I’m not surprised.” She studies her nails, recently varnished pink. “He’s always been Papa’s boy.”

Khalid inhales shakily. “Thank you, Hilda, for standing up for me. It— it means a lot.”

She smiles, as wide as the day they’d met. “It wasn’t just for you, dummy. It was for everyone.”

“Still. I owe you.”

“Aw, none of that silliness. We’re friends, Khalid. It’s the least I could’ve done. I should’ve pummeled Holst into a pulp.”

They share a grin, though Khalid’s sags soon after. He rips up a chunk of grass in a particularly violent fit. “I just— We kissed this morning. I thought he believed in me.” Laughing without any humour, he adds, “He was my best friend here.”

“Well, now I can be your best friend here.” Hilda grins, but changes tact when Khalid just stares sadly at her. “We can get him back. I promise.”

“How?”

“By talking to him.” Hilda stands. “Come on. We’re going to have a roundtable meeting of our own: a proper one this time.”

True to her word, Hilda arranges a meeting— in under an hour too. Khalid walks in to find everyone already assembled, though of course Holst does anything not to meet his gaze.

“Alright,” Khalid says, sitting down in his usual spot beside Holst, who stiffens and shifts slightly away. “As you all know, I am Almyran. But, I am also an Almyran prince.”

Hilda gasps theatrically. “You’re actually royalty?”

Khalid stares at her, laughing a little. “Yes, actually.”

“You do not behave remotely like any prince I’ve met,” Lorenz says with a sniff. Lysithea elbows him.

Holst shifts again, but before he can say anything, Khalid barges on. “If I were to become leader of the Alliance, I would unite both the Leicester leadership and the Almyran monarchy. In other words, I would have the power to stop the war.” He looks at each of them in turn, even as Holst continues to avoid his gaze. “That’s only with the aid of each of you though. We all have to be in this as one.

“There does not need to be anything more than a mountain range between our two kingdoms. As Khalid al-Din Mahmud, first prince of the Almyran dynasty, I open my arms to you.”

Hilda actually cheers. Marianne reaches across the table to clasp Khalid’s hand. Lysithea plants hers on top, and so does Hilda. Lorenz follows, reluctantly, leaving— once again— only Holst.

Khalid looks at him properly for the first time. Holst holds his gaze.

“What do you say, Holst?” Khalid says softly.

Holst swallows, his throat bobbing. He sounds on the verge of tears when he says, “I can’t. I can’t, I’m sorry.”

The rest of them watch Khalid catch the door and follow him out. “Boys,” Hilda says with an eyeroll. Marianne laughs.

Outside, Khalid catches Holst by the arm. They seem to just be going back and forth, chasing one another and then shying away again, moths to each other’s sun.

“Why?” Khalid asks, voice breaking on the word.

Holst turns to him with glassy eyes. “I would rather die than lose my father.”

“But you have us!” He grips Holst with both hands now. “You have all of us.” And you have me.

“You know that isn’t the same—”

“If he only loves you when you do what he wants, then he can’t be much of a father.”

Holst wrenches his arm from Khalid, anger flattening his mouth. “You don’t get to say that,” he says, even as he knows Khalid is right. Knowing is very different to accepting, though. “Leave me alone.”

Khalid stops, and Holst turns to flee. “I saw the sky in your eyes,” he hears Khalid say. “I saw a world where an Almyran prince and a Goneril son could hold one another and be one.”

Holst tilts his head up, blinking away tears, and hastens. He leaves the boy he had kissed that morning behind.

The air around the table is charged. Without Oswald von Riegan’s familiar gravity, power swings in unpredictable, chaotic lines around the room. It has been swaying within Khalid’s vicinity, though. He stands at his grandfather’s seat, staring across to Holst, who has composed himself to a cool blankness.

“Now, we will recommence the vote for Claude von Riegan—”

“Khalid al-Din Mahmud,” he corrects.

Gloucester’s brow furrows, but he manages to repeat the name without butchering it too badly. “ —Khalid al-Din Mahmud taking the seat of Duke Riegan as head of the Leicester Alliance.”

“I say aye,” Hilda says from beside Khalid. Beneath the table’s edge, she clutches his hand tight. He squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back.

“Aye,” repeat Marianne, Lysithea, and a still-reluctant Lorenz.

“Duke Riegan has obviously given his blessing as well, which leaves us even. If we are unable to reach a majority, then the decision will be terminated,” Gloucester says, unable to hide the smugness in his voice.

Khalid can only gaze at Holst, the expanse of the polished wooden table separating them. Hrothgar Goneril looms behind his only son, that ever-present hand weighing on his shoulder. Holst stares back, wishing he could tell Khalid a hundred things— but most of all, that he’s sorry that he ever doubted him in the first place.

“Father,” Holst says, turning to face the man and dislodging his hand from his shoulder in the process. “Why does the war run on?”

“Because the Almyrans—”

“Do not lie to me.” They can all hear the power thrumming in Holst’s voice.

Goneril corrects himself with an exasperated sigh. “Because we must, son. It is our duty.”

“Your duty to what, exactly?”

“To our people. Why should we starve when just across the mountains they swim in wheat and grain? In wealth from their gold, and their timber, and their lands.” Goneril appeals to the room, now, addressing his fellow leaders. “You wouldn’t understand; you have never ruled—”

“I understand enough, Father.”

Goneril looks affronted, tries to grab his son, but Holst steps away from him. He steps around the table, closer to Khalid, and meets his gaze as if reaching out a hand. “And if you were to become leader, you would ensure diplomatic relations between our two peoples?”

Khalid allows a smile to settle on his lips. “Of course. I want what’s best for all of us.”

Holst shares his smile with a sheepish one of his own, before saying, “Then I will say aye to the leadership of Khalid al-Din Mahmud.”

Hilda shrieks and runs to tackle her brother. Then they’re all piling into a big hug— even Lorenz— and Khalid is laughing, out loud, and Holst’s hand finds his own and they hold one another as they hold all their friends. The elder members are bemoaning the vote behind them, but they don’t hear. They’re all united, and the future has never looked brighter.

A boy, who is both an Almyran prince and the Riegan heir, embraces the four other children of the Leicester Alliance.

His green, growing gaze finds the pale eyes of the Goneril son, and they are one.