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Hubert sighed and shook his head. His poor brother didn’t seem to realise he was walking right into a trap.
The Lhant manor had been decorated to the nines for the annual Christmas party. Sophie had gone wild with the tinsel, decorating every space available with the stuff. Hell, he got caught up chatting with Cheria, and only realised when he tried to move that Sophie had stealthily festooned his legs and tied them off with a neat bow. He pitched straight onto his face. Cheria apologised through peals of giggles, and healed the welt forming on his forehead.
The Christmas spirit truly had arrived here in Lhant. The streets were thick with carollers, faces warm and merry from mead, and Lady Kerri was plotting a Christmas wedding.
There were several new names added to the guest list this year. Specifically, the names of all the eligible batchelorettes in Windor, and some from far afield. There were also several bachelors, for at this point Lady Kerri was casting her net as wide as possible.
He couldn’t say he blamed her. Asbel’s proclivity was hard to pin down. His brother was rather more interested in turning in requests rather than paying attention to either sex.
“Just one more,” he protested, as Hubert hauled him away to go get changed for the party.
“For God’s sake, brother. You’ve already levelled up all your titles, what do you need the EXP for?” Hubert snapped.
If he wasn’t turning in requests, he was dualising with that bloody turtlez that lurked around the Lhant manor like some kind of drug dealer.
In their old childhood room, he helped Asbel with his tie. He was still rather hopeless with the things.
Lady Kerri had laid out Asbel’s clothing. That in itself was a trap, too, for she had chosen the colours she knew Asbel looked best in. He pulled at his pocketsquare, completely unaware he’d been festooned like a turkey for slaughter. He looked dashingly handsome in white and emerald green.
“What is it, Hubert?” he asked, when he noticed Hubert staring.
“Nothing,” Hubert said. He focused instead on finishing his own outfit.
Asbel smoothed down his hair. “Ah. You… you don’t think Mother has invited more girls to this party, do you?” he asked, shooting Hubert a worried glance.
“What do you think, brother?” Hubert said, and Asbel’s face fell.
“I kind of hoped we could just have family and friends here tonight,” he said. “I wanted to spend time with you, Hubert, before you head back home.”
The smile he gave Hubert did something to his chest. He cleared his throat.
“We’re running late,” he said.
As the brothers headed down to the party, Hubert realised just how dangerous the trap their mother had laid was. He heard Asbel’s sharp intake of breath, too, as he noticed.
Mistletoe.
It was hung everywhere– every bough, every doorframe.
Sophie’s head bounced up above the bannister of the staircase. “Do you like it, Asbel?” she asked eagerly. “Grandmother told me to hang it up. So I put it everywhere.”
“You… you sure did, Sophie,” Asbel said weakly.
“Did our mother tell you what it signifies?” Hubert asked.
She nodded. “Yes. If you get caught under the mistletoe, you have to give the other person a kiss! It’s a tradition.”
Asbel put his head in his hands. “This is my fault.”
It’d been Asbel who had introduced Sophie to the idea of traditions, as a way of making sure his daughter felt properly at home as a member of the Lhant family. What better way to do so was to induct her into all the town’s traditions? He’d taken her apple-bobbing at Harvest Festival, lit fireworks on the Summer Solstice. Of course, he’d told her about Christmas; about lighting candles, pulling crackers, and about mistletoe.
Sophie took these traditions incredibly seriously.
“Look, Asbel. We’re standing under the mistletoe right now,” Sophie said, with a smile she didn’t try to tamp down.
Asbel chuckled wetly. “So we are. Well then…”
He planted a chaste kiss against her warm cheek. Sophie beamed.
Then she turned on Hubert. Pointed up above his head. For God’s sake, the stuff really was everywhere. “You too, Hubert.”
He huffed. “Is that really necessary.”
She stared him down. “It’s tradition, Hubert.”
He didn’t dare to fight her on it. He licked his dry lips. “Fine.”
He too pressed a kiss on her cheek, and her resulting smile made the embarrassment of it worth it.
“Does this mean we’ll all get married?” she asked eagerly.
“What?” said Asbel.
Hubert scoffed. “Oh, it’s that old saying. A load of baloney. You know, red sky at night, and don’t step under a ladder. That sort of thing.”
Sophie pursed her lips, looking quite cross. “It’s not baloney, Hubert. It’s tradition. Grandmother told me lots of couples would get married after Foselos Night when she was young.”
Anyone else, Hubert would have argued his case against such humdrum. But, well, this was Sophie. “It is, however, not applicable under these circumstances. Read it for us, Sophie?”
Sophie pressed her hands together, and earnestly recited, ‘A lover’s kiss under Foselos’ most bright, thou will’t be wed by Easter’s night.”
“See?” said Hubert, with a gestured hand. “It is indeed the night where Foselos is most bright– the solstice. But a peck on the cheek hardly counts as a lover’s kiss.”
“Oh. Really?” Sophie asked. Her face fell.
Hubert patted her on the back. “Trust me, Sophie. You don’t really want to marry us. We’d be terrible husbands. Especially Asbel.”
“Hey!” said Asbel. He didn’t, however, add any further protest.
This also didn’t seem to cheer Sophie any. And well, Hubert hadn’t been wrong, but also couldn’t stand to see such a disappointed look upon her face.
“Perhaps you haven’t heard the other version of the saying, Sophie,” he said.
She peered up at him curiously. “There’s another version?”
God. What else rhymed with night?
“Kiss your friends on Foselos Night, your luck for the year will be airtight!”
Asbel glanced at him, as if to say, Did you just make that up?
Hubert elbowed him.
Sophie’s smile was brighter than Foselos itself. “I’m going to kiss all my friends tonight!”
She shot off like a rocket.
Asbel looked pained. “Did you know what Mother was planning?”
“I could hazard a guess.”
Asbel gave him a weak, wavering smile. “Do you think it’s too late for me to claim a stomach ache?”
“I fear that excuse would not suffice, brother,” Hubert said, shaking his head.
He groaned. “What do we do, then?”
“Hold. I’ve dealt with situations like this before.”
“You have?” spluttered Asbel.
Hubert stepped towards the bannister, giving himself a clear view of the room. With his tactical mind, he scanned the place, looking for obvious booby-traps. Most doorways had been rigged with mistletoe, and the area by the buffet was completely off-limits. To indulge in a canape was to invite total annihilation. But…
“There is a safe passage through the manor. Some doors have been left untouched, and I suspect that the garden will be a safe haven– unless Sophie has found a way to string mistletoe into the sky. If we can slowly and carefully make our way through the manor, avoiding the traps, I can grant you safe passage into the garden,” Hubert said.
Asbel sagged in relief. “Really?”
“Of course,” said Strahta’s master military tactician, flashing his glasses. “Stay not a foot away from my side, Asbel. I will ensure not a sprig, nor a leaf of mistletoe touches you this night.”
“Hubert, you’re saving my life.”
“You can thank me by not bringing up my platinum membership of the Sunscreen Ranger Fanclub ever again,” said Hubert.
Asbel stared at him, a small smile forming on his face. “Wait. Seriously. You actually have a platinum membership for the Sunscreen Ranger Fanclub?”
Hubert scrambled. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know? You’ve been teasing me about it for months!”
“I was joking! But seriously, you actually have one?”
“Of course I do. The platinum package comes with VIP access to Screencon and front row seats at panels.”
Asbel sniggered behind his hand. “Wow. I’m gonna have so much fun with this info.”
“You are not, if you wish to survive this night unmolested and unengaged to Duke Dalen’s grandson.”
Asbel groaned. From their vantage point, he could see Eugene, Duke Dalen’s youngest grandson. He stood by the buffet table, unstealthily filling his pockets with shrimp.
“Anyone but that guy,” Asbel bemoaned.
“Precisely. Which is why you must heed my advice and follow my every command. And not mention my platinum membership to the Sunscreen Ranger Fanclub.” His eyes glinted steely behind his spectacles, and Asbel gave way.
“Fine! I won’t mention your stupid membership. Lead the way, oh glorious leader.” He paused, scanning the buffet table. “Can we at least go by the sausage rolls?”
“You fool! Haven’t I told you the whole place is a set-up? One sausage roll and it’s a lifetime of matrimonial imprisonment.”
Asbel huffed. “Fine. No sausage rolls.”
Navigating the Lhant Manor took every single piece of strategy he’d learned at the Academy, and every single game of Battleship he’d decimated Asbel at over the years.
“Potential hostile at Eight ‘o clock sharp,” Hubert hissed in Asbel’s ear.
“What?”
Hubert sighed a put-upon sigh. “Woman under the mistletoe, by the festive eclairs.”
“Oh, right.”
“Assailant coming up from the rear, twelve o’clock.”
“Can you just talk normally, please?” Asbel begged.
Hubert huffed. “If you insist. By the way, Eugene on your left coming straight at you with his dance card primed.”
Asbel quickly defected out of the way, taking refuge behind an ice sculpture as Duke Dalen’s nephew approached Hubert, looking puzzled.
“Did I see Lord Asbel here a moment ago? I was hoping to ask him for a dance.”
Eugene smelled overwhelmingly of seafood.
“He went to the bathroom,” Hubert covered for him; a subtle and skillful deflection. “He may perhaps be there some time. Said the shrimp seemed a little off.”
“The shrimp. Huh…” Eugene paled, and scurried off.
Hubert found Asbel cowering behind the ice sculpture. He hadn’t recognised it from behind, but it was of King Richard.
Over the last few years, the King’s popularity had skyrocketed to fannish proportions. Hubert had had several heated debates at Barona Comicon over who would win in a 1 v 1 fight; King Richard, or Sunscreen Ranger Red.
Hubert had kicked King Richard’s ass too many times to think that Richard could ever defeat Ranger Red.
Hubert tore his eyes away from the statue to see Asbel gazing up at Hubert with huge terrified eyes. “Hubert. I- I could smell him from here.”
“You’re safe from him now, brother. I suspect the man in question will spend the rest of the evening in the bathroom, rethinking his life choices.”
Asbel’s gaze softened. The way he looked up at him, as though Hubert had saved him from a fate worse than death, did something to Hubert’s chest.
He coughed, and held out his hand. If there was any sort of frisson when Asbel took it, it was probably just static.
“Asbel! Asbel, are you here?”
Asbel paled. It was their mother.
Hubert pulled him close to stage-whisper, “If you let our mother engage you, Asbel, it’s over. She will steer you to some eligible guest, and make no mistake; I might as well start penning my best man’s speech.”
Asbel’s hand shook slightly.
“Come, brother. We must hasten our departure.”
The front door was a complete no-go. Enough mistletoe had been strung over the top that it’d be an instant KO for his sensitive, marriage-shy brother. His hand still in Asbel’s, he pulled his brother through the crowd, only to run smack-bang into Lord Orlen.
“Lord Asbel!” he boomed. “I’ve been looking for you all night. I must introduce you to my dear, only daughter, Cecilia.”
In the face of danger, Asbel faltered.
“Well, I guess I can spare a–”
“Asbel,” Hubert hissed in his ear. “Marriage is forever.”
He paled. “I’m so sorry, Lord Orlen, I’m not feeling too well, I have to–”
No. Mother was attacking from a new angle, striding with determination across the hall toward Hubert and his brother.
A pincer attack.
They needed a smokescreen. A diversion.
“Look,” Hubert shouted wildly, “it’s King Richard!”
Everyone turned at once to follow Hubert’s gaze.
To Hubert’s complete surprise, King Richard actually was there. He looked startled by the sudden attention, and then raised his hand in his most royal of waves.
“Good evening, all,” he said.
Well, that was it. Hubert might as well have yelled, free merch at a Sunscreen Rangers con. The room surged, the guests pushing through the throng to get to Richard, whose face froze into a visage of polite panic.
“We need to help Richard,” Asbel insisted. Hubert rolled his eyes. His brother, ever the chivalrous fool.
“Richard is quite capable of handling himself. I’d be more worried about us,” Hubert said. Truly, the crowd was so excited Hubert felt himself at risk of being trampled.
“But–” Asbel was cut off when a man elbowed him in the face in his eagerness to get through. Asbel was knocked back– right into the carefully stacked champagne tower, resplendent with over a hundred glasses of Windor’s finest.
The champagne tower wobbled dangerously. Hubert’s breath caught in his throat. At first, he thought it might come off OK, but then the glasses shifted slightly off-centre, and–
Oh, no.
There was nothing Hubert could do to stop it from unfolding in front of him. The champagne tower collapsed sideways in a cacophony of smashing glass and a tidal wave of alcohol, which sent the crowd rearing back, straight into the buffet table. With a shower of shrimp, a whole salmon was flung high into the air as though leaping gracefully from Lake Grale. It landed, not-so gracefully, on Lord Orlen’s face.
In the chaos, Frederic used all his professional waiting skills to avoid calamity with the crowd, and was silently congratulating himself when he felt something pull tight around his ankle. Before he knew it, the tray of champagne glasses he was presenting were yoinked backwards as the Christmas lights tightened around his ankles. He wobbled uncontrollably, reaching for purchase on anything to avoid further catastrophe. He missed the stone column, and instead grasped at the twinkling fairy lights.
“Oh, bother,” he said, as the pink-pink-pink sound of fairy lights being torn away from the column heralded a great chain reaction.
Snapped from their moorings, the Christmas lights lashed around the neck of the ice sculpture of King Richard. A great groan of ice emanated through the hall.
Hubert knew what was going to happen an instant before it did. He moaned aloud.
The weight of the heavy decorations pulled the sculpture from its stand. In slow motion, it toppled.
CRASH.
The crowd went silent as the King himself was felled, his icy appendages strewn across the dance floor.
It was as good a distraction as any. “Brother, let’s go,” Hubert whispered.
They hurried out the back door, into the garden, while the crowd was still stunned by the carnage that had taken place.
Hubert exhaled a huge breath. “That wasn’t quite how I imagined it would go, but, you’re free, Asbel.”
Asbel was buzzing with adrenaline. “What just even happened?” he asked.
“I fear King Richard’s popularity has exceeded its boundaries,” Hubert sighed.
Asbel nudged him with his elbow. “Even more than the Sunscreen Rangers?”
Hubert scoffed. “Richard’s fans might be more… excitable, but have they written a 300,000 word essay on how the conflict with the Shellions is actually a metaphor for Strahta’s rampant class division?”
Asbel stared at him. “No, I’d wager they have not.”
“Asbel! Hubert!”
It was Sophie, covered in trifle. Hubert blanched, and pulled a piece of shrimp out of her hair.
“Sophie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get caught up in this,” Hubert fretted.
Sophie was grinning from ear to ear. “That was awesome! Did you plan that, Hubert, with your incredible strategic mind?”
Hubert paused. “Yes.”
Asbel frowned at him. “Wait, did you rea–”
He stuck his hand over Asbel’s mouth. “Shut up Asbel, let me have this,” he hissed.
Sophie was looking overhead, a small smile forming on her face. Hubert followed her gaze, and groaned.
“I finally caught you,” she said with a grin.
Under the arch Hubert and Asbel were resting against, Sophie had strung a huge globe of mistletoe.
Hubert groaned. “Do we really have to do this foolish tradition?”
“You have to!” said Sophie.
Asbel was blushing gently, scratching at his cheek. “Well, I guess I wouldn't say no to more luck for the year.”
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” demanded Sophie.
Asbel might be for it, but Hubert certainly wasn’t. Sophie was one thing, but kissing his brother, even on the cheek? Even entertaining the suggestion was nauseating.
Asbel saw his resistance, and he pouted. “Is… the idea of kissing me so bad? You used to kiss me every night, before bedtime.”
Hubert flushed furiously. “Shut up!”
“But you did. You said you couldn’t sleep otherwise!”
“I said shut up!”
His face felt like it was burning.
Sophie was waiting expectantly.
“Fine!” he said at last. “Let’s get this over and done with.”
Asbel’s smile stretched from ear to ear. Why did it make his chest feel so light?
Hubert ignored the feeling, as was his custom.
With more trepidation he felt than facing down an entire wild gang of bandits in the desert, Hubert leaned in. He closed his eyes; he couldn’t bear to look.
“Asbel! Young man, show your face right now!”
It was their mother.
So much for luck. Just as he was about to press a chaste kiss upon his brother’s cheek, Asbel turned his head in the direction of their mother’s voice. Their lips met. A strange tingle ran through Hubert, and he jumped back as though he’d received an electric shock.
Lady Kerri was stood on the doorstep, King Richard beside her, his clothes torn from the mob. She stared at her sons in utter horror. Richard, leaning up against the doorframe, started up a slow clap.
“Congratulations, boys!” he said.
Sophie took up the applause with aplomb, clapping until her hands hurt. “Hubert! Asbel, wow! Congratulations!”
Hubert’s head was spinning. “No! What are you talking about?”
King Richard slowly repeated, with clear salacious enjoyment, “‘A lover’s kiss under Foselos’ most bright, thou will’t be wed by Easter’s night.’”
“But- but–” Hubert spluttered. He looked to his older brother for help, only to find Asbel looked slightly dazed and pink, a small idiotic smile upon his face.
“I think congratulations are in order,” Richard said, rebuttoning his torn suit. Was this punishment for the ice sculpture, Hubert wondered? He turned to shake Lady Kerri’s hand. “I know how long you’ve hoped to see your boys wed.”
“N-not to each other!” she spluttered.
He swept his cloak behind him in a flourish. “As your King, I am honour bound to uphold our most ancient of traditions. I endorse this union between Asbel and Hubert, and would be honoured to marry you myself tout suite.”
Was Richard joking? Hubert really hoped he was joking. But Richard had that evil look in his eyes again, the same one he wore when he tried to destroy all life on Ephinea.
He stared back at his brother, grasping for a way out, and instead was arrested by the soft look in Asbel’s eyes.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, he thought, before he stomped the errant idea under his heeled boot.
Whatever happened, it seemed this new year would be very different from those that came before it.