Archive of Our Own

I was raised a child of Random and Vialle. Although Martin was only around so often, I regarded him as my beloved half brother. He was kind, much like his father - my uncle, as I later would learn. My true father only approached me a few days before I was to walk the pattern. I was pacing anxiously in my room late in the evening when I received his call.

“Ah, Caine,” I greeted, trying to hide the state of my nerves.

He reached out a hand to me. “Come here, Oliver,” he said. “I need to speak to you in private.”

I gulped, but hoping that our conversation would distract me from the feelings of dread and excitement clawing away at me, I accepted.

I was pulled through into Caine's room, and having never been there before, I took a quick look around.

It was much as I had assumed it would look. There was a strong nautical theme in the decorations and choice in books. Caine sat in a chair, and he beckoned me to him. I fidgeted nervously but went to him and took a chair to his left.

“I wanted to give you a warning,” he said.

“Huh?” I blinked at him in surprise. My older cousins who had walked the pattern had already called me to them and “warned” me that the pattern was unbearably painful and could easily kill me. While I knew their words had only the slightest bit of truth to them, these conversations had done nothing for my mental state. If Caine were to say something similar, however, I feared I would be too shaken to step foot onto the pattern. “What is it?” I stuttered.

“You should walk the pattern alone,” Caine said, “with no one watching you.”

There was a brief moment of relief when I realized my fears weren't coming to pass, but this was quickly replaced with confusion. “Alone? Why?”

“Because you were shapeshifted at birth,” Caine explained. “You still wear a form that's little more than a disguise. Walking the pattern will revert you back to your true appearance.”

I stiffened, and my mouth went dry. I tried to speak but found myself unable. Thankfully, Caine continued.

“I know this because I was the one who shapeshifted you,” he said. “It was something I was forced to do to hide the fact that you're my son.”

I wasn't sure if I was still breathing at that point. Either way, the panic that had set in was making me dizzy. I could hardly believe it. How could Random not be my father? It seemed too unlikely for my mother to cheat on him.

This logical reasoning calmed me slightly, and I gave a nervous laugh. “Good one,” I said. “But others have already tried to unnerve me and failed.”

“I'm not trying to unnerve you. I do have proof,” Caine continued, and the dread returned. “However, it's proof that you'll only gain by walking the pattern. But if anyone sees your true form, you'll be an eternal disappointment at best, and imprisoned or killed at worst.”

I searched his expression for a sign he was joking. I found none. “But what about Mother?” I asked.

“What about her?”

His tone, dry and indifferent, made me flinch. “Why would she cheat on-” I stopped. I wanted to call Random “Father,” as I'd always done, but something stopped me.

“She didn't,” Caine said. “I'm a skilled shapeshifter, after all. She thought it was her husband she lay with. Afterward, I muddled her memory slightly so she'd think that evening was little more than a dream, just in case she felt like mentioning it to Random for whatever reason.”

His story seemed like just that: a story. It was the sort of thing I expected someone to make up to mess with my head, although I hadn't expected such tactics used on me by Caine. However, the way it was told, there were no holes, and I couldn't disprove it. “If this is true,” I managed to stammer, “then what do I do? I still intend on walking the pattern.”

“I'm glad,” he said. “It would be a shame if you were to back out from your birthright just because of what I told you.” He grinned. “To answer your question,” he continued, “what you should do is walk it early. Claim that your nerves got the best of you and that you were scared of failing in front of everyone. It seems like the sort of thing you'd say.”

He was right. I didn't say as much, however.

“We can go right now if you wish.” He looked at me expectantly.

“I'm not sure I'm ready,” I replied.

“No one is ready for the first time they walk it,” Caine said. “The best thing for it is to just do it and hope for the best. Anyway, doing it now will get it over with and you won't have to fret for the next few days.”

I thought about it for a while. “Fine,” I said. I wanted to know if there was any truth to this story, and he was right in that getting it over with now might be for the best.

“Excellent.” He stood and headed for the door, and I followed him.

Together, we left his room and headed for the dungeons. We walked in silence except for the echoing of our footsteps. There was a sudden thought that maybe this was all just a clever lie and my relatives would all be clustered in the pattern room, waiting to mock my gullibility. However, when we entered, the pattern glowed lonesomely in the empty cell.

Caine stopped by the door, and I looked up at him. He gazed at the pattern with a strange expression on his face. It was an expression that I had never seen before, but it was somewhere between passion and awe. However, there was no reverence in his gaze, nor did it look loving.

There was a moment of stillness, but then he seemed to snap out of it. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small, circular looking glass and handed it to me. “In case you want to see what you look like when you finish,” he told me.

I took the mirror and pocketed it. I didn't want to admit it, but I was already starting to believe him.

“Go on,” he urged me.

I took a moment to attempt to steel myself. When that failed, I willed myself closer anyway. I needed to know the truth.

I didn't allow myself to hesitate when I approached, and instead just set one foot on the pattern and started to traverse it. My breathing was shallow but steady, and my pace was even. If I hadn't been so tense, I might've laughed in relief at how easy it was. I'm glad I didn't, because that was when I hit the first veil.

The first veil is the easiest of the three, but that doesn't mean that it's not difficult to pass. Still, I pushed through with guidance shouted at me from Caine.

After I broke free from the first veil was when I first felt the changes begin. My skin crawled as though covered in countless ants, and my very bones tingled as I felt them morph beneath my flesh. I gritted my teeth and forced myself onward.

The second veil was exponentially more difficult than the first. My knees buckled as I felt the air forced from my lungs. Gasping, I pushed as though my life depended on it, and it did. I eventually made it through, but I don't recall how. The changes I felt were different now and weren't coming as quickly. I assumed that meant I was nearly at my true appearance. Part of me wished to whip out that mirror in my pocket right then and there, but I didn't dare distract myself from my task.

If the first two are veils, the third is a lead wall. Sweat had already soaked my clothes through before I'd even reached it, so the sweat that erupted from me had nothing to absorb it and dripped among the blue sparks that rose up with each heavy step I took.

But I made it. I staggered through, nearly losing my balance. However I caught myself and pushed on to the end.

I lifted one foot and then the other from the glowing line. I had made it. Weak, I crumpled to my knees, and it was in this position that I scrambled shakily through my pockets, desperately searching for the mirror. Once I found it, I held it up to my face and stared upon a stranger.

My eyes had remained blue. It was one of the few things that had been unchanged. Everything else, no matter now similar, had been altered. My facial structure no longer held any resemblance to Random’s. However, I also didn't look much like Caine. I would have taken more time to study my face if not for my hair. I had expected it to go from a sandy blonde to an inky black like Caine's, or at the very least a dark brown. No, what instead sprouted from my scalp was a shock of red.

My breath caught in my throat.

“Come here,” Caine called out to me. He held a trump in one hand.

I shook my head. “What is this?” I muttered.

“Hm?”

Panic overcame me. “What the hell is this, Caine?” I snapped. There was anger in my voice, but it was overshadowed by fear.

Caine's voice was calming and gentle, a tone I was unfamiliar with from him. “Come to me and I can explain everything.”

My eyes darted from him to the mirror. I was safe in this circle, I knew. He would have to walk the entire length of the pattern to get to me, and I would be able to teleport away from him before he reached me. But with the way I now looked, there was no way I could ever face my family again. If he were truly a shapeshifter as he claimed, he could turn me back and hide me.

Gritting my teeth, I stood and willed myself to him, and the power of the pattern teleported me from my safety.

Without a word, he grasped my shoulder and focused on the trump he held. I glanced up at it and saw that it was to his room. When we arrived, he bid me to sit and then went to a cabinet to pour us drinks from a crystal decanter.

“Well done,” he said as he offered me a glass. When I didn't move to take it, he set it on the table beside me and then took a swig from his own as though to prove it wasn't poison.

“What did you do to me?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he answered as he took a seat to my right. “The pattern did that to you, and all it did was remove the layers of shapeshifting I've placed on you over the years.”

“But my hair,” I spluttered.

“Hm?”

“Shouldn't it be black like yours?”

He smiled at me over his drink, and I realized then that something was different about him, that something had been different with him since we had entered that room deep in the dungeons and he had set eyes on the pattern. “You aren't Caine's child,” he said, “nor am I Caine.” My blood ran cold as he continued. “I'm a skilled shapeshifter, remember?”

“If not Caine, who are you?” I asked. However, I was afraid I already knew the answer.

He laughed then, and he started to change into a new appearance that confirmed my fears.

“Brand,” I said.

“In the flesh,” Brand replied.

“But you're dead.”

“A common misconception,” he said. “One that I, of course, had a hand in cultivating.”

I wasn't sure what else to say or do. I just wished that this was merely a dream that I would awaken from any moment.

“I'm sure you have a lot of questions,” he said after a long pause that he'd seemed to have expected me to fill. “Allow me to explain myself somewhat to see how many I can preemptively answer. After all, I need you to trust me, and we'll need to work together if we're to accomplish my goals.”

“I'm not betraying Amber,” I blurted out.

Brand stared at me in wide-eyed startlement, but then he laughed. “I no longer have any intentions of destroying Amber, or it would have been razed long ago,” he said. “Just listen to what I have to say, and you can decide what to do once I've finished my tale.”

He told me of how he had allied himself with a citizen of Chaos, Jasra by name. They had worked together until Brand's late-game change of heart, and she betrayed him and took his form. Unable to clear his name, Brand took Caine's place. Caine had meddled in their plot and found evidence that would have incriminated Brand and his allies, so they had been forced to slay him. His corpse had been left as a message to their other siblings, but it had been simple enough to convince them that the body they'd found had merely been a shadow when "Caine" had miraculously reappeared to kill “Brand” and save the day.

He finished his story and looked at me expectantly. I didn't know what to say. “Well?” He prompted.

“That explains a lot,” I admitted meekly. “But why? Why have a child with Vialle?”

“I suppose you could call it a twisted sense of humor,” he said. “I wanted the heir to my new Amber to also be related to the Queen of this Amber.”

“I thought you said that you no longer wished to destroy Amber,” I said.

“I don't,” he replied. “I've since learned that two Ambers can exist side by side without having to destroy the other. All I wish for is an Amber made in my image. I've enlisted the help of one of my siblings, and in return for his aid, he will become king. You, though, will be heir to the throne.”

“Heir?” I stared at him.

“Of course,” he said. “I can understand if this is a lot to take in. You're more than welcome to think it over. But for your safety as well as mine, I would recommend keeping my existence a secret.”

I nodded, and he stood and approached me. His features rapidly melted back to Caine's as he moved, so that he was Brand at his chair but Caine by the time he took the two steps necessary to close the distance between us. He grabbed my shoulder and I inadvertently let out a startled yelp and jerked away.

“Don't fight me,” he warned. “I need to change you back to your disguise.”

My heart raced and my breath came in short and shallow gasps, but I obeyed him and tried my hardest to relax.

Shapeshifting was strange and foreign to me back then even though I had supposedly experienced it before. I squeezed my eyes shut as Brand worked and only dared open them once I felt him release me and heard him step back.

“You’re free to leave,” he said. “No one will guess your true parentage from a glance.”

I realized I was still clutching that mirror in one hand, and I raised it to gaze on my face. Everything was back to how it had been, how I was used to it appearing.

“Feel free to come back whenever you’d like to talk,” Brand said. “I can teach you things, like shapeshifting and magic. You’re picked on because you’re youngest and least experienced, but I can ensure that your cousins never pick on you again.”

It was that line more than anything that swayed me to his cause, and I told him I’d think about it before retiring back to my own room.

When I awoke the next morning, everything from the night before felt like it had been a dream. However, Brand’s mirror still rested on the table I had set it on the night before. I picked it up and let it sit in my palm. Staring into it, I gaze into the false face I had always thought belonged to me.

I set the mirror aside and grabbed my set of trumps. Shuffling through them, I found Brand’s trump and focused on it. However, I felt no stirring of consciousness. The card was still. I frowned and shuffled it back into the pack when it struck me: Caine’s trump. I removed Caine’s from the deck and focused on it. The response was almost instant.

“Good morning,” Brand greeted through Caine's mouth. “I have to admit that I’m surprised to hear back from you so soon. Have you had enough time to think things over?”

“No,” I admitted. “However, I want to learn more. I want to learn magic and shapeshifting, and I want to learn more about you as well.”

“Alright,” he said. “Our lessons start today. I’ll call you when it’s time to start. I hope you’re ready.”

He was about to end the call, but I called out “wait!”

He hesitated. “What?”

“The trumps,” I said. “How come Caine’s trump goes to you?”

“It was quite a tedious feat, to be honest,” Brand said. “I had to make sure to replace every single trump of Caine’s with a new one that looked like Caine but led to me. Similarly, I destroyed as many trumps of myself as I was able and replaced them with trumps leading to Caine. However, I didn’t need to be quite as thorough with the trumps that depicted me. After all, who was realistically going to attempt to call someone long thought dead?”

“I see,” I said, and he ended the call before I could ask any further questions.

I sat on my bed anxiously, wondering if this really was a good idea or not. I told myself that I hadn’t yet committed to aiding him and could always back out if I needed to. I was just learning something new from Brand, my father.

It struck me then that Brand was my father, and my blood suddenly ran cold. This threw my entire idea of how my family was related to me into complete chaos. Random wasn’t my father but an uncle, and Bleys and Fiona were closer to me that I had previously assumed.

And then there was Martin. My dear brother Martin was now just a cousin.

And what would he think of me? I was the son of a monster, the man who had nearly destroyed reality. On top of that, my father was the man who had stabbed him, spilling his blood onto the primal pattern to create the black road.

Martin could never find out the truth about my parentage, I decided, much as it pained me.

Brand, still in the form of Caine, contacted me as I still sat there in bed, stewing in my existential crisis. “Are you ready?” he asked.

I nodded and took his outstretched hand. I found myself then inside of Caine’s room.

“We’ll be gone for a long time,” Brand said as he returned my trump to his deck and searched for a different one. “However, you’re more than welcome to quit at any time.”

“Should I call someone and tell them I’ve walked the pattern and am heading out to shadow?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No one will notice you’re gone,” he said. “You’ll be away from Amber for several months, but we should be back by breakfast.”

I remembered then how time flows differently in other worlds.

I nodded to show him that I understood, and he withdrew a trump from his deck. After pocketing the rest, he clasped one hand on my shoulder as he held this trump before him and focused on it.

That was the first of our training sessions in Chaos, but it would be far from our last. When we returned, it was as he had said, and even though I had just finished months of education in the Courts, I was able to sit down with my relatives for breakfast the day after I had walked the pattern.

During dinner that evening, I stood and claimed I had an announcement. “I’ve already walked the pattern,” I said. “I could hardly sleep last night, so I decided to get it over with early so I wouldn’t have to worry about it any longer.”

Again, Brand had predicted accurately. No one questioned my actions. In fact, Random came and congratulated me. My muscles tightened when he swung an arm around my shoulders and hugged me to his side. This man wasn’t my father.

The next morning, Brand contacted me again, and we began a long pattern of leaving for Chaos early in the morning for several months at a time only to return just as the rest of the castle was rising. Thus, in mere weeks I was able to acquire years of knowledge, and in the years I trained under Brand, I gained a lifetime of skills and power. I was no longer that shy and hesitant little boy, although that was my guise. Brand no longer needed to maintain the shapeshifting that kept my appearance altered. I could do it on my own, and I made sure to play up the weaknesses that my relatives assumed of me. My eyes had started failing me after a time, inherited from my blind mother and accelerated by my constant extended trips to Chaos; however, I quickly found that I could shapeshift my eyes so that they were healthy once more when back home in Amber. I then gradually altered my disguise, artificially deteriorating my vision slowly so that it more closely matched the eyes in my true form. This worked even better than I had expected, and I quickly noticed my relatives’ attitudes toward me change.

My cousins had always been mean to me, but after I changed my eyes and began wearing glasses, they became downright cruel. They seemed to be testing me, disbelieving that I really was as weak as I seemed. At first, I blamed this on myself. Had I played myself as too helpless? But no, I later realized. This wasn’t my fault. This was more accurately a reflection of themselves. I grew to hate them.

My uncles and aunts had treated me with indifference before, but their indifference only increased the more I suffered. I grew to hate them as well.

Random, the man I had known as my father, seemed to genuinely love me. However, he was always busy with royal duties, so he was never witnessed such things and couldn’t be there to shield me. I couldn’t hate him for that, but I quickly grew distant from him.

Even my own mother could do nothing. She was no Amberite, and she was completely blind to boot. I felt pity for her and nothing more.

But then there was Martin. Martin wasn’t around often, but when he was, he was kind and warm and nurturing. He never witnessed any of the cruelties from our relatives, but he seemed to suspect their mistreatment of me and did all he could to prevent it. Even though I no longer regarded him as my brother, I still loved him.

One morning, I awoke and didn’t get a call from Brand. Puzzled, I tried calling him. However, he instantly refused the call. I wasn’t worried about him, but I was confused as to why I was being stood up. Therefore, I got dressed and walked to Caine’s room.

Once I reached his room, I didn’t think to knock and instead took on my new favorite form of a large, black centipede and scurried under the door. It was then that I heard the moans. I froze and listened closer. One of the voices was most clearly Brand’s. The other, too, I recognized, although I didn’t want to admit it.

Curious, I moved closer. While I knew that my countless tiny footsteps would be unperceivable, I felt compelled to tread lightly as I slowly made my way into Caine’s bedchambers.

Brand was there in his true form. Although all I could see was his bare back, I could tell from the red hair that it could only be him. He was on top of someone else, someone with a familiar orange mohawk. This other man's legs were raised and spread, and he cried out in pleasure with each of Brand's thrusts.

I was frozen in shock. When I recovered, I quickly scurried back out of the room and into the hall, not caring as to if they heard or saw me.

I shapeshifted back into the form my relatives knew me as and sat in the hall outside Caine's room. My heart raced. I could hardly believe what I had seen. I sat there trying to recover from my shock until I heard movement from the other side of the door. I scrambled to my feet and darted around a corner just as the door opened. Peering back, I saw Martin leave that room.

I wanted to try trumping him to test if it was really him or call out to him and try his memory of recent events. However, I then got a call.

Jolting backward, I hit my head against the wall. A swear escaped my lips, but I stiffled any that might've followed and answered.

As I had expected, it was Brand.

"Are you ready?" He asked.

"Was that Martin?" I blurted out before I could stop myself.

He grimaced. "I thought I felt your presence," he muttered.

"Answer my question."

"Yes, it really is Martin."

"Why? How?"

"It's a long story."

"I have time."

He sighed. "Fine. Let me pull you through so we can talk in my room." He held out a hand, but I didn't move to take it.

"I'm fine where I am," I said stiffly. "Now talk."

He frowned and lowered his hand. "I had to gain his trust somehow," he said. "After all, if no one told him how to answer a trump call, how was I supposed to stab him? What we had was meant to be brief. However, it became something more, and I started to drag my feet about going through with the plan to sacrifice him on the pattern. The longer I waited, the stronger I felt toward him, and when I couldn't put it off anymore, it became too much to bear. It's for this reason that his wounds were nonfatal and he still lives."

"Yet he forgave you?"

“Of course.”

“Why?”

"Would you believe it's love?"

"I can believe that you're a cold and cruel manipulator," I shot back.

He laughed. "You aren't wrong," he said. His laughing only enraged me further, and I trembled in anger. “Much as it started out that way, he's changed me. And don't worry," he added, "only you and he know about me, and he knows nothing about your true parentage."

"That's not what I care about," I said through clenched teeth. I ended the call and trumped to Chaos. There, I continued my training on my own, ignoring Brand's calls.

When it came close to time for me to return, I decided to spend some time exploring the shadows around Chaos. I had gained my power over shadow so long ago but had rarely used it, instead spending all my time in Chaos or Amber. I decided that I might as well make use of my power and see more of what the shadows between could offer me.

Walking slowly, I savored the subtle changes as I manipulated existence to my will. With each step, I could change, create, or destroy anything I wished. It was empowering.

When I grew bored of this, I decided to try out another ability I was aware of and sought an object of my desire in shadow. I sought someone I could relate to, befriend. I have to admit, though, I wasn't exactly expecting Fenrir.

His size startled me more than anything. I had seen stranger beings than a fiery wolf during my many trips to Chaos. But Fenrir was as tall as a Clydesdale yet infinitely more intimidating. Still, I approached him, and I learned that the flames that smoldered in his chest were warm, and his soot-black fur was soft.

We grew close, and as the time neared for me to leave, I decided to draw his trump. He marvelled at my skilled paint strokes and the incredible likeness I had captured of him. I taught him how to answer and then told him I might be gone for a while. My face grew dark as I thought of speaking to my father, however.

Fenrir seemed to understand my feelings instinctively, and he lay beside me, silent as he thought. "You don't have to force yourself to love your father if it doesn't come naturally," he said after a time.

I sighed. "Thanks, Fenrir," I said. "But that's not the only reason I'm dreading this."

"Because he's using your brother?"

"Cousin," I corrected. "We aren't that close." I looked down.

"It sounds like you're very close," Fenrir said.

"Yeah, but our ties by blood-"

"Why does that matter?" Fenrir asked. "Do you need a strong familial tie to care about him?"

I wanted to shake my head, but I didn't. I knew a “no” was the right answer, but it wasn't the answer that was right to me.

"He sleeps with your father, yes?"

"I don't really want to think about that, Fen," I muttered.

"Just hear me out," he continued. "If he's with your father, then why can't you view Martin as a step-father?"

I opened my mouth to protest but then closed it again. A grin split my features, and it turned into a laugh. "Step-father?" I asked. "No way! He's not the father type!" My laughter faded to a chuckle. "No," I said. "He'd be more like a mother."

"Would it help to think of him like that?"

I leaned my head back into Fenrir's soft fur and closed my eyes, playing with the idea.

"Yes," I said. "It does help somewhat, actually. But I still feel no love for Brand."

"Well, as I said-"

"I know," I said. I opened my eyes and pulled out my Trump deck, fetching Caine's trump from their number. "Hey, do you want to come with me? I've decided that I'm going to join Brand's little plot."

"That's quite the sudden change of heart," he said. "But sure. Take me with you."

"I have no love for him, it's true," I said. "However, it's from this lack of a bond to most of my family that I feel I can do what I've decided to do."

I stood and held the trump before me, and Brand answered. He seemed to have taken the time to shapeshift in order to answer my call in his true form, and he regarded me coldly when he appeared before me.

"Pull me through," I demanded.

"And the prodigal son returns," he remarked with a smug smirk. He reached out his hand, and I took it as I shapeshifted a third arm from between my shoulder blades that reached out to clutch a handful of Fenrir's fur. Brand pulled both of us through, and the panic that flashed briefly across his face made me instantly feel better.

"The hell is that?" Brand snapped, and Fenrir growled.

"He's my friend," I said as the additional arm dissolved back into my spine. "Be nice to him. He's most of the reason I decided to come back, and also the reason I've decided to join you."

Brand raised an eyebrow. "Join me? In creating a new Amber?"

I nodded.

"Excellent," he said. "Beyond excellent! I'll contact my ally at once. But please, shapeshift your little friend into something more, well, little."

While he focused on his call, I turned Fenrir into a human, shapeshifting him with my touch much like how Brand had shapeshifted me after I had finished walking the pattern.

Brand turned to face me. "Alright," he said. "Everything is settled. I'll take you to meet him tomorrow instead of our usual training."

He kept his promise, and that next day, our plan was set in motion.

An army was recruited from Chaos - it was easy enough with how many houses loathe Amber - and led them to Amber. Our ally and his Hounds were to take the lead while Brand and I had other roles to play.

I shapeshifted myself to resemble a Chaosian, and with Brand's help, I infiltrated Random's room to steal the jewel of judgement. However, Random was there. Distracted as he was with an apparent trump call, I could have easily stolen the jewel of judgment from him and fled. However, I wanted him to know the full extent of this plot against Amber. I readied my sword, a magically sharpened blade that had been shapeshifted as well to better match my new form, and struck.

The blade cleaved through him easier than I was expecting. I pulled my weapon free from his body, and he collapsed.

As I took the jewel, I heard Brand swear. Looking up, I realized that he must have been watching me through my trump, and when I had attacked, he'd forced a contact. "Take my hand," he demanded as he thrust his out to me. I wrapped the chain attached to the jewel around one wrist, and with my sword in the other hand, reached forward to take his hand.

He pulled me through, and I found myself in Caine's room. Brand, disguised as Caine, approached me and smacked the back of my head. "I told you that there should be no unnecessary bloodshed," he snapped.

I shapeshifted back to my usual disguise. "But it was necessary," I said. "I needed to make sure it looked like someone from Chaos had stolen it. A Chaosian wouldn't have slunk in, taken it, and left when the King of Amber was right there, helpless and distracted." Brand held out a handkerchief, and I took it and used it to clean the blood from my sword. "The only problem was that I wasn't expecting the sword to be quite so efficient, and his wounds were more severe than I'd have liked. Still, that makes it even more realistic. A Chaosian would have assumed that would have been enough to kill an Amberite and left him to bleed out. But he was on a trump call, so someone should get to him well before it's too late."

Brand still didn't look pleased with me, but his expression told me that he found my logic sound. "There's no doubt you really are mine," he said under his breath.

"Just because I, too, can stab family members who care about me in order to further my own gains?" I asked.

He glared at me, and I met his gaze with confident smugness.

"Yes, actually," he said tensely. "Now, we should alert our ally that the task is finished. Give me the jewel."

I did, and he left.

It was a few days later that we left to draw our new pattern. I left first to avoid suspicion, and Brand joined us several days later. We had chosen a location far out in shadow - a place with some significance to our ally - for our new Amber. But we knew it didn't matter how far we went; the shadows would draw themselves around our new Amber to make it the center once more.

We led Brand to the spot we had chosen, and he eyed the wide, flat stone with approval. Taking the jewel of judgment from us, he opened a vein and lifted the jewel to eye level to walk what he saw within. Once it was completed, the pattern flared up in an angry red, sparking viciously like something alive.

I walked that redly glowing pattern after him. It, too, was my birthright.

Brand and I spent the rest of our time together in our new Amber creating our own trumps of this place. We then parted ways, him returning to Amber to attempt to return the jewel and myself wandering out into shadow until shy, meek me would feel safe enough to return.

I traveled with Fenrir through shadow, distracting myself and continuing to practice my powers. I didn't realize anything was wrong until Brand called me.

"There's a problem," he said. "Our pattern moved to the center of shadow as expected. However, its addition is putting stress on Corwin and Oberon's Ambers."

"What does that mean for us?" I asked.

"Well, luckily, no one suspects you except the paranoid idiot, so you're safe. However, everyone suspects me. I had been planning to return to our Amber until things died down. However, since this means that our new Amber won't be the invisible Haven we were hoping it would be, I'm not sure I can do that just yet and instead plan on waiting out in shadow," he said. "With this complication, we'll be forced to erase Corwin's pattern with his blood. But he's been missing for decades anyway, and he was missing for ages before then too. No one will miss him. Our ally is making preparations to slay him as we speak."

I decided then to speak up and share part of my own plan. "Why stop at Corwin's Amber?" I asked. "If I fake my death, I can start manipulating things in the background, and we'd easily be able to destroy both of the other Ambers."

He scowled. "The point of this plan was to grant me what I desired without having to destroy the true Amber," he said.

"Ours could be the true Amber," I said. "But fine, I understand." I ended the call and followed it up with a call to our ally. He understood much better than Brand had, and from then on, he was my ally alone.

When Brand learned that I had gone through with faking my death, he was livid. He approached myself and my ally in Kirin Amber to yell at me. I stared at him coldly the entire time.

"The two of us have already worked things out," I said when there was a break in his ranting. "My ally will destroy Corwin's pattern, and I'll destroy Oberon's." Before he could continue, I cut him off. "I don't understand why you're so upset," I said. " I'm finishing the job you didn't have the balls for. You could say I'm just living up to your legacy."

He glared at me but seemed to comprehend exactly what had happened. He went for his trumps then, presumably to escape and warn the rest of his siblings, but I was faster. My blade sliced through him as effortlessly as it had Random. However, by then, I had better control over the weapon and knew how to hold back enough to keep the wound from being nearly as fatal.

He dropped to his knees clutching at the slash, and his deck scattered across the stone floor.

"You can't shapeshift that wound away," I said, laughing as I saw the fear set into his eyes when he realized what now coated my blade. I gave a nod to my ally, and he took Brand to the dungeon. As I continued to carry out my plans, I took occasional breaks to peer into the cell and watch as my father wasted away, the wound I'd inflicted rotting on his chest.

The next step was to rescue my loved ones from Amber and its nearby shadows. First on my very short list was Martin. The hardest part about getting him to Kirin Amber was finding him out in shadow. Once I found him, however, it was merely a matter of making him sleep long enough to transport him to the safety of my room.

I paced as I waited for him to awaken, pondering what to tell him. I shifted my form between true to the one he knew as I walked, but neither seemed right. I eventually settled on the form he had known me as and seated myself nearby to watch him sleep. My heart pounded in my chest as I waited. I was excited because finally Martin would be safe with me. I was scared because I worried he would hate me for who I truly was.

Martin started to stir, and I forced a calm and gentle smile onto my lips. "Good morning," I greeted, and he startled.

"Oliver!" He exclaimed. "What happened? I heard from Father that you'd been murdered!"

"All I did was similar to what our relatives think Caine did during the war," I explained. "A shadow died instead of me."

"'Think'?" He stared at me. "Then you, too, know that Caine is actually dead?"

I nodded.

"How did you learn this?" He asked.

"My father told me."

"How did Random learn about Caine's death, then?"

I shook my head. "My father, not yours," I said. "We're cousins, Martin, not brothers."

He looked confused. I stood and strode toward the bed, answering his unasked questions by shifting to my true form. He yelped and jerked backward in surprise and then stared at me with wide eyes. "Wait, you're Brand's kid?"

I nodded again and sat on the edge of the bed.

He stared at me, taking in my appearance. Then, he spoke. "Where's Brand?" He asked. "He hasn't been answering my trumps."

"Brand has been imprisoned," I said. "He attempted to betray me and my ally, and I was forced to put a stop to it. Once our plan is complete, he will be released and shall be free to leave wherever he wishes."

"What plan?" Martin asked. "By the Unicorn, Oliver, don't tell me you're the one who's been behind the recent strangeness going on in Amber."

I said nothing. I didn't need to. My silence seemed to be all he needed. He finally looked around the room as though just realizing something was off. "This isn't Amber, is it?"

"It is," I said.

"The true Amber!"

"It will be."

He paled, and his eyes darted about as though looking for some way to escape.

I sighed, disappointed that Martin didn't seem to understand what I was doing. For his own safety, he, too, was sent to the dungeons, and I checked in on him as often as I could to make sure he was well.

I passed by Brand's cell on my way back up after depositing Martin, and I paused at his door a moment before unlocking and opening it.

His wound was festering, and there was such a stench that I first worried he had actually died. However, he stirred when I approached him.

"Mother's here," I told him, “safe and in a cell nearby.”

He stared up at me with empty eyes. "And here I thought you wouldn't be interested in saving Vialle," he said.

"It's not Vialle," I said. His brow pinched together in thought, and when he said nothing for a while, I added, "it's Martin."

He glared at me and struggled to rise, but I pressed one foot into his rotted chest and laughed when he screamed.

"Don't worry," I assured him. "The two of you will be reunited once Oberon's pattern is erased from existence."

I left him there as he groaned in pain and made my way back up the steps.

My plan would continue. Amber would fall. And my tiny, fucked up family would alone be safe.