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Even before Shahid opens his bedroom door, he knows Khalid is afoot. His mere presence makes Shahid's hair stand on end, his hands clenching into fists to ward off unseen prey. The air is heavy, thick; something beside the heat of Garland Moon fills the air with humidity.
Hatred, Shahid thinks when he sees Khalid playing with his things. His brother is seemingly without any other hobbies to keep him occupied, without anyone else to bother. He has yet to earn a man's wyvern, too small for the ornate saddle, and Khalid is too young to understand the significance of such traditions.
Revulsion.
The tiles from a board game tap against the ground as his half-brother tosses them every which way, too young to understand but old enough to be curious. It's always one of Shahid's treasures that makes it into Khalid's grubby little hands, this time the board game with ivory pieces that their father gave him. The last of his gifts; a summation of his love. Every time Khalid manages to find it, no matter where Shahid hides it, he loses another piece. Slipping off into some unknown crevice, riding upon some magical wind.
Like a shattered mirror. A wagon with three wheels. A wyvern who eats its weight in flesh but refuses any rider who attempts to mount her. Shahid is a broken thing: valuable as a whole, but useless when sundered.
And then there's Khalid, gazing up at him with that absurd grin plastered on his face. That unkempt mop of hair that their father loves to pat, as if he is a beloved pet. The hair that his mother brushes every morning before little Khalid musses it climbing trees; rolling in the muck with the baby wyverns; sprawling out in the gardens all alone, lying on his back and reaching for the sky.
Khalid isn't broken. Khalid is nothing. And yet their father sees in him something promising, some notion that Shahid has yet to grasp. Is it his innocence? Surely he will shed that before long.
Once, Shahid read a book about the Three Deaths of a man's life: naivete, innocence, and life itself. It was an arduous tome, written by some self-proclaimed scholar from hundreds of years ago. But maybe he'd been onto something. Maybe whichever brother held onto his three lives the longest would be eligible for the throne — and for their father's love.
Shahid lost his naivete the day Khalid was born, squalling and red. His father never looked at him the same, and Shahid hadn't lingered around Khalid's cradle long. He has always been a ghost, despite his caterwauling: See me.
Khalid has him beat on the naivete front, then. And innocence, too: Shahid lost that the day his first wyvern had died. He had doted on her egg, rippled with iridescent scales, but before he could name her, she died a few days after digging out of her shell. A sickness. Some weakness.
Another loss against the brother who still doesn't even know they're at war. One loss too many.
Another game piece slides across the floor, slipping beneath Shahid's bed. Never to be seen again.
"Oops." Little Khalid giggles, his tiny hands wreaking havoc across Shahid's room. Scattering game pieces, stomping across his books with dirty feet.
No one said Shahid couldn't end Khalid's lives: his naivete, innocence. His very life itself. And once backed into a corner, Khalid trembles at last. So pure, so sweet. Fate finally twisting to Shahid's whims.
Shahid cups his brother's cheek. How fragile, the human body. Their father might not ever know. What's a few scrapes, a broken bone or two, in the grand scheme of things? And little Khalid won't tell.
"Do you know what love is, brother?" Shahid asks. Confusion fills Khalid's eyes: Does he know? He adores his mother and father, surely; his wyvern friends, grazing across their mountainside range.
Khalid nods. Squeezes Shahid's hand. This, too.
If Shahid still held onto naivete, still clung to innocence, their relationship might be very different. He might not have noticed the thickness in Khalid's throat as he swallows: a glimmer of fear.
Shahid might have seen love staring back at him.