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The chains wrapped around his wrists dug harshly into his flesh. It wasn’t anything Cardan was fully unused to. Balekin had been clever with his punishments in the past. It wasn’t always a beating that left his back to bleed bare to the world. Leaving him scarred with silver streaks along his skin. He would chain him, bind him, beat him with fists instead of tools.
It depended on his mood. On any given day. How violent he would be when Cardan would refuse to shed the blood of someone he decided was innocent. Guilty of making a deal that would turn them into a slave, generally they were innocent of crimes befitting their punishment. He knew what the faeries were. He knew that they were tricksters. That they were cruel more than they could ever be kind. Cardan was aware of all of that. It was part of the reason he became what he was.
A monster.
But he was not the one that slaughtered their family. He was not the one standing on the dias now, laughing and celebrating with wine and food in hand. Sitting on a throne that did not belong to him with a crown set in front of him.
“Our dearest decoration for the revelry to entertain themselves with.”
Balekin’s hand gestured to him and Cardan could not move. His arms longsince turned numb from the position he was dangling in. Chains wrapped tight around his wrists. Arms strapped above his head. His body dangling through the air so that his feet could just barely reach the ground below. He was strung in the center of the room. Facing the throne. Facing his brother.
“I raised you, little brother.”
And Cardan was glad for it. It had not been perfect. It had been far from anything that was kind. He had seen his enemies treated with more kindness than he got to experience in any given point of time. Care that was an honest thing. Missing someone when they were gone. Wanting to protect them. Keeping them from harm. He had seen his enemy be trained but never harmed for the intent to be harmed.
He supposed, in Balekin’s mind, neither had he.
“If you place the crown to my head I will give you power.”
He knew it was true. He knew that if allowed himself to go with Balekin, to place the blood crown to his head, that they would have power. That they would become something nearly unstoppable. He shouldn’t care about the people of Elfhame. Cardan had only ever been their scorned Prince. The one that none of them had ever seemed to want. He was nothing to all of them and that was simply as it was.
He shouldn’t care about them. He shouldn’t care for what would happen to them. For how his brother would rule. It shouldn’t matter to him what would happen to the throne or the crown or anything of the sort.
And yet.
“You could have Hollow Hall for yourself. You could have any servant you want. You could have whoever you want to bed. All the wine and gold you can carry.”
He should ask for the treasury. He should ask for all the wine the palace held.
He should be making a list of demands and listing them to Balekin to have his brother swear them before walking himself from here. He should be accepting and rolling for the threats he was being shelled and instead he was hanging here and arguing in his return. He was fighting back against what Balekin was offering to him.
The olive branch burned by no one’s hand other than his own.
Cardan could not find it in his rotten heart to regret that fact.
“Tell me your desire, Cardan. There is no need for this game.”
All he offered his brother was a grin.
“You seem to enjoy it so, for something with no need.”
He could see the spark in Balekin’s eyes. Watching him chained and suffering. He could feel the pressure around his wrists. The weariness in his body. His strength had faded from him hours ago. When his brother had made it a game to all the revelers standing around the room to throw items at him and take turns striking at him. It was to humiliate him. Shame him. Break him into submission.
“You did not break me in all our years before, why did you assume it would work now?”
Balekin’s eyes turned nearly pitying.
“Do you have any one else that would look for you? That would care for you? That would try to protect you?”
He did not.
Balekin only continued.
“I have seen your struggles, little brother. I care for you. I love you. I could not say it if it were not true. Crown me and we can have what was stolen from us by our father.”
He should join him. He should lay the crown to his head and be done with all of it. It shouldn’t matter to him what would happen. He should be raging and hating against everyone else in this room for gawking at him strung in chains and hung in the center for their amusement. He should be fighting for himself. He should be defending himself form them. All of them.
He wasn’t. He was defending them.
“You will have to do more before I consider crowning you, brother.”
Balekin was the only family he had that had cared for him. That took him in when the others would not. That had attempted to guide him. However painful it had been, that was truth. Balekin had been there when Cardan had otherwise been completely alone.
“Would you rather I beat you?”
His brother stood now. Stalking down from the throne and taking the crown into his hands.
“Would you rather I maim you?”
He took his steps closer.
“Break you until you are so weak I can poison you and have you do anything I ask for the antidote.”
He wanted to say that he wouldn’t. That he would rather die. But Cardan knew himself and he knew he was afraid of death. He was afraid of what it would mean.
“You are pathetic.”
The words were spat.
“You aren’t strong enough to do it. To hold on. You are nothing. You are here, a decoration for my coronation and I can’t even celebrate with you. YOu should be happy for me, brother, instead you are—”
“Instead I am you decoration. Scathing you and insulting you. Taunting you with something you were so close to having and will never have.”
Balekin nearly snarled at him.
“I should have killed you first.”
“And be in this position with one of our other siblings? Our more willed ones? You can buy me with wine or maybe I’ll be too drunk to hold the crown.”
He was talking too much. The grin on his face was aching. It shrouded the fear that beat like a caged bird in his heart.
“You will rot here, like this.”
“And so will your crown.”
“Do you want down? Is that it? You need only swear to crown me King and I will release your binds.”
“I will come out of this eventually.”
Dead or alive, he did not know.
“You have no one but me to do it.”
Balekin was close. Too close. And he was right. Cardan knew it. He knew that there was no one that would save him. Everyone he thought maybe would have stepped in would be cheering far too much now for the chaos. To watch him bleed and see him hurt. He was without anyone that truly cared for him and it had left this heart more hollow for the bugs to burrow into. He was empty of anything that would allow for him to feel and he could not fix it.
He would die here like this. Without the strength to save himself and without the allies to rescue him.
Cardan would die staring at the bloodstained throne.
“Accept me, brother.”
He saw earnest truth in his eyes. The look of someone that was truly his brother. That had played with him when he was young. That had taught him the skills he needed in order to survive in the world they lived in. That had given him nearly everything and kept him safe from the rest of the dangers around them. The only one that had bothered to look for him ever in his entire life.
He was standing now in front of him. Angry and threatening. And Cardan wanted to doubt.
He wanted to.
“I will not crown you.”
“Why?”
He didn’t know that he could answer. He didn’t know what words he could scrape form his tongue to be truth. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t saving himself.
“You will die, Cardan. Is that what you want?”
He could hear the hurt in Balekin’s voice as he asked it. They both knew he was afraid.
“You’ve killed all the rest of our family.” His voice became a whisper. “What is one more?”
Explosions rocked the palace. Surrounding them one by one. People screaming out around them and Cardan could not move. He could not fight. Even as Balekin moved to. As he ordered others to defend him. Cardan hoped it was rebellion. He hoped it was someone who could fight. Who could win. Who could stop Balekin. Who would save him or let him die swift.
He closed his eyes to wait.