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The morning of Scott’s Observance, he sits at the table before breakfast alone.
It’s set with plates, fine and gilded, silver spoons and richly woven napkins, and food growing cold on the table. Dried fruits, warm bread, and tea – all things set out for Scott to see and not touch.
He’s meant to fast, of course. Aeor will sustain him today, and nothing else. Despite this, his schedule is full and rigorous; meetings, lessons. Prayers. He spends the precious moments of quiet at the table reading and rereading a prayer he already knows by heart, and he wonders if that wears it out, to read it so often before reciting it to Aeor in full.
“Don’t tell me our studious prince has forgotten his lines already.”
He turns. Xornoth lounges in the doorway, shoulder against the doorframe, hair braided intricate and perfect over their shoulders.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Scott says. How could he?
The older prince straightens up. They lean over Scott’s shoulder, plucking a slice of apple from the tray in front of him, and bite into it with a crisp snap. Scott looks ahead unwaveringly. “Let’s hope not. Could you imagine the shame of two failures in a row? Mother would never forgive you.”
Xornoth says it lightly, as if it’s just a joke. Scott doesn’t think he’s going to find anything funny today. In the weeks leading up to this ceremony, Xornoth has gone from teasing to distant to relentlessly cruel, and while Scott realized long ago that love isn’t something that exists in a royal family, the way his shoulders now stiffen at the sound of his sibling’s voice still aches in him.
“There won’t be a second failure,” Scott says, evenly. He closes the tome in front of him; rustles ancient pages gently. “If you don’t mind, Brother, I’d like to spend the hours before my First Prayer in silence.”
Quiet scoff. Xornoth steps away. “Of course, your highness. I’ll see you this afternoon.”
❆❆❆
Xornoth is waiting by the stables when Scott arrives that afternoon. Their hair is up now, still perfect, still braided, tied into a neat knot at the back of their head. Scott’s hair is unruly today. He’s had to stop and comb it flat again twice since his First Prayer, taking up flips and curls that are entirely absent in his sibling’s hair.
It sits funny in his stomach, right next to the pang of hunger that hasn’t left quite yet. Aeor provides for him today.
Is it rejection if he is still hungry? Scott puts the thought from his mind.
“You should ride with me this afternoon,” Xornoth says, by way of greeting. They have a comb in one hand, brushing down the mane of a beautiful roan stallion. “It’s been too long.”
Momentarily, Scott’s taken aback. This is the first kind thing Xornoth has said to him in weeks, and his chest aches. His hunger leaps to accept it, to say yes, yes, can we please be brothers again?
Scott’s been Crown Prince enough years to not fall for something he wants. “I have a lesson after our spar, Brother.”
The comb still, just for a moment, in their hand. Near-regretfully, they run it through the length of the horse’s mane, and then hang it from a peg at their side.
“Never mind, then,” Xornoth says, and Scott knows the cheer in their voice is fake. They reach for gloves draped over the stable door and gesture to the empty courtyard behind them. “Shall we, then?”
Swords in hand, gloves on. Scott widens his stand, feet spaced exactly as his sibling taught him. Across the courtyard, they twirl their own blade, so practised to look easy. Xornoth flicks a finger, signals for Scott to go, and he makes the first move. He always does.
“Do you ever wonder why they allow me to continue to train you?” Xornoth asks. Sword clash; they bat it away easily.
“Because you are a good swordsman.” Scott has never been able to best them. He steps back, circles for a new opening. “So I can learn from you.”
Xornoth lunges forward. Clash of metal, ferocity of blows like nothing Scott has ever seen from his sibling before. He loses ground, forced back one step after another, barely parrying each blow, and his breath grows heavier with each one. Step. Swing. Block. Fall back again.
It’s vicious, and it’s over in seconds. With a definitive twist of their blade, Scott is disarmed. The sword clatters to the stone of the courtyard; his hand stings where the handle was torn from his grasp. His wrist twinges.
And Xornoth’s blade rests, feather-light threat, on his throat.
He breathes light; tries not to move. There’s this emptiness peering back at him from Xornoth’s face, something cold and lonely and… And angry. An anger so deep its frozen.
Scott wonders what Xornoth’s seeing on his face. He doesn’t feel anything but that hungry ache.
After a long moment of silence, chest heaving, Xornoth says, low, “What are you learning from me? Do you know the lesson they’re teaching you?”
Scott doesn’t answer. He feels dizzy.
Finally, their sword lowers. They take a step back, and Scott exhales. He gathers his sword, and the world swims in front of him. Crouches, catches himself on his knees. He hears his heartbeat, blood rushing in his ears, and sees spots of black crowding in around his eyes.
Deep breath in. Aeor sustains. Slow breath out.
Sword in hand.
“You become what is expected from you. It’s the price of our position.” Xornoth waits behind him, unrelenting. “Rise again, brother.”
❆❆❆
“You’d better remember all of this,” Xornoth says, that night at the celebratory feast. They’ve been lurking in the back of the hall like an angry wraith with perfect hair and gold-embroidered clothes. They aren’t wearing their crown; Scott wears a golden circlet now. “Keep it all in there with that perfect Prayer-Saying little memory of yours.”
Scott knows they’re already on their second glass of wine. Maybe a third. He hasn’t touched any yet; still waiting for his first meal of the day to digest before he risks alcohol. “I don’t think I’m the one who’s in danger of forgetting tonight.”
Xornoth laughs. Harsh, like he’s in on a joke that Scott hasn’t heard the punchline to. They clap Scott on the shoulder, and he stiffens under their touch. “Well, they’re not gonna let me hold your hand forever.”
“I don’t recall the last time you held my hand,” Scott says, evenly. The laugh stops there. Xornoth looks at him, that same cold, empty, angry gaze, and for all Scott’s practice in negotiations and politics, he has never been able to understand his own sibling.
“You wouldn’t.” They lean in, close enough to whisper drunken in his ear, “Aeor sustain you.”
With that, Xornoth is gone. Disappearing down the hallway behind him. Scott doesn’t look back.
With his stomach full, he still feels hungry.